Bill H.R. 2, passed by the House, could reduce the uninsured rate of children in West Virginia by 67 percent said Families USA senior health policy analyst Jennifer Sullivan.
Over four million children would benefit from health care under this bill which is expected to be passed by President-elect Barack Obama. Similar bills were vetoed twice by Bush.
Sullivan told the Daily News 19,400 West Virginia children could gain coverage as well as an estimated 47,100 children living in Kentucky.
“This is a big deal for working families,” Sullivan said.
Close to seven million children from working families with too much income to qualify for Medicaid now get government-provided health care. The bill increases cigarette taxes by 61 cents, to a dollar a pack to pay the $32 billion cost of insuring four million more children.
Sullivan said the Senate began working on a similar bill Thursday.
While some Republicans complain the bill covers up to 600,000 non-citizen children of legal immigrants, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) doesn’t agree and voiced her support for legislation to reauthorize CHIP.
“We know that quality care for our children makes them stronger adults, and I was pleased to support this bill,” says Capito. “We implemented the West Vir-ginia CHIP program when I served in the state legislature and there’s no question that CHIP now helps thousands of uninsured children from low-income families receive the health care they need. Yet it’s vitally important that serving low-income children continues to be the top priority for this program. We must enroll eligible children who aren’t currently covered by the program, before expanding the program to other groups.”
The State’s Children Health Insurance Program (CHIP) was created in 1997 in response to the rising number of children nationally without health insurance. In a report released in November, Families USA (a national, nonprofit organization for health care consumers) found there are 8.6 million uninsured children in the U.S. The report was based on new Census Bureau data and reflects a three year period from 2005 – 2007.
Titled “Left Behind: America’s Uninsured Chil-dren,” the report spotlights several details about the 8.6 uninsured children.
• One in nine children in America is uninsured.
• Uninsured children come from working families. The vast majority of uninsured children come from families where at least one parent works, and more than two-thirds of uninsured children live in households where at least one family member works full-time, year-round.
• 60.4 percent of the nation’s uninsured children come from low-income families who are likely eligible for Medicaid or CHIP.
• The five states with the largest number of uninsured children are Texas, Cal-ifornia, Florida, New York and Georgia.
• The five states with the highest rates of uninsured children are Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada.
Sullivan said with the data does not include the number of uninsured children in 2008 but with the deepening recession driving up the unemployment rate, the numbers are bound to drastically increase. She estimates that for every one percent increase in the unemployment rate, an estimated 600,000 children become eligible for Med-icaid or CHIP.
“As a father and grandfather, I believe that no child should go without health care,” said U.S. Rep Nick Rahall (D-WV) after the U.S. House of Represen-tatives passed the bill. “Two out of every three uninsured children in the U.S. are eligible for health care coverage, but remain uninsured. I am proud to have helped pass legislation that will provide health care coverage to the 38,582 children in West Virginia currently enrolled in SCHIP and the 19,400 children who are currently uninsured in the State, but will receive coverage under this legislation. The House has come together in bipartisan fashion to pass legislation that will help ensure heath care coverage across the Nation to those who need it the most.”
The bill could come at a crucial time for young residents of the Bluegrass state. Funding cuts forced an end to Kentucky Homeplace, a prescription program which helps people in need to fill prescriptions at no cost. The program was cut after the Cabinet of Public Health eliminated the rest of its $2 million budget for the fiscal year.
Kentucky Homeplace’s Web site reports that the program helped about 15,000 people in 58 Ken-tucky counties.
Families USA reports there are 89,000 uninsured children living in Kentucky and 29,000 in West Virginia.
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