Wayne Allard: “It directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish rules and regulations to set a uniform gross income…”

“It directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish rules and regulations to set a uniform gross income among the States. He has 90 days, once the bill becomes law, to do that. This will give the States further opportunity to give their input to the Secretary, and it gives him some flexibility to listen to what their concerns are, but says then these States all have to operate under the same rules. Some States, for example, when they looked at total gross income, have not included income benefits from other programs. Some States have. So this amounted to a considerable amount of discrepancy, particularly in high-income States where the benefits are running much higher. So we see some States that are getting a much higher rate of benefit through SCHIP than perhaps the more responsible States, such as your State of Mississippi, my State of Colorado, for example. So this is an important amendment to bring some integrity to the program.”