October 26, 2007

Dear Partners,

We wanted to let you know that the House voted yesterday on a new modified version of the SCHIP bill.  The bill fell 7 votes short of a veto-proof majority (click here for the roll call vote).  This bill is expected to be voted on in the Senate next week.  The President has, however, said he will veto this bill as well.

The bill, HR 3963, is new legislation that is a modified version of the SCHIP bill passed by the House and Senate last month.  The revised bill still provides $35 billion in new spending for SCHIP and will still cover close to 4 million more children.  Modifications were made, however, to address concerns raised by the President and certain Members of Congress.   The revised bill would:  

• Further increase the focus on covering the lowest income children – it would cap SCHIP coverage at 300 percent of the federal poverty level
• Tighten the citizenship documentation options to ensure ineligible children are not enrolled in Medicaid and SCHIP, without reducing enrollment among eligible citizen children
• Accelerate elimination of childless adults (coverage would be eliminated over one year rather than two)
• Add additional steps to eliminate crowd-out 

For a more detailed summary of modifications please visit our website (see the “new” items in the “Current Issues” box).

It is unclear what will happen next if the President vetoes the bill and Congress sustains the veto.  We will keep you posted as we learn more.

And as always, please feel free to contact me (617-275-2929, arosenthal@communitycatalyst.org) or Erin McDuffie (617-275-2805, emcduffie@communitycatalyst.org) directly with questions.  Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Amy Rosenthal
Project Director