Michael Burgess: “Under the Barton-Deal plan, new enrollees would be strictly limited to services provided to children and pregnant women…”

“Under the Barton-Deal plan, new enrollees would be strictly limited to services provided to children and pregnant women with household incomes under 200 percent of the Federal poverty level. And, again, when those States can demonstrate that they are covering the 90 percent of the kids in the bracket, then they could expand to the 250 percent of poverty level. Under the Barton-Deal plan, it does require citizenship to be verified. Many people in my district, certainly many people across the country, feel very strongly about this position, and I have heard from constituents even just this morning in a community coffee in a small town in north Texas. This was something that people were very vocal about it. Once again, we need to reaffirm that the SCHIP program was designed for children who were in need, not for children who had access to health care coverage by other means. The Barton-Deal plan does allow for some individual choice in health care and really, once again, reaffirms that the 'C' in SCHIP stands for children. And, indeed, that is as it should be.”