Jeff Bingaman: “I rise with co-sponsors Senators Leahy, Lieberman, and Cardin to introduce and ask your support for the Children's…”

“I rise with co-sponsors Senators Leahy, Lieberman, and Cardin to introduce and ask your support for the Children's Health Equity and Technical Amendment Act. Since the passage of the Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, in 1997, a group of States that expanded coverage to children in Medicaid prior to the enactment of SCHIP has been unfairly penalized for that expansion. States are not allowed to use the enhanced matching rate available to other States for children at similar levels of poverty under the act. As a result, a child in the States of New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania, because they were grandfathered in the original act or in Iowa, Montana, or a number of other States at 134 percent of poverty is eligible for an enhanced matching rate in SCHIP but that has not been the case for States such as New Mexico, Vermont, Washington, Rhode Island, Hawaii, and a number of others, including Connecticut, Tennessee, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Maryland. As the health policy statement by the National Governors' Association reads, "The Governors believe that it is critical that innovative states not be penalized for having expanded coverage to children before the enactment of SCHIP, which provides enhanced funding to meet these goals.…”