Another thing the Governor is missing while jetting to China is the major showdown over S-CHIP, with California signed on to an 8-state lawsuit against the federal government.
Several states said Monday they would challenge the Bush administration in federal court over its new rules that block the expansion of a health insurance program for children from low-income families.
Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Washington are joining in the litigation, either as plaintiffs or by filing supporting briefs.
The states object to rules issued by the Bush administration in August that make it harder for them to provide coverage to children in middle-income families by limiting the total income of families who participate.
The states accuse the administration of overstepping the federal government's authority to set income limits for participants in the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
It's amazing that, in this day and age, states have to sue the government so they can provide health insurance to needy children. But this case puts extra pressure on the Bush Administration to pass the bipartisan bill expanding S-CHIP, which is politically popular. It also puts pressure on Republican House members, who are all that's standing in the way from this bill becoming law through a veto override. Smart Democratic challengers are already making this a defining issue in next year's elections. The DCCC is targeting House members with radio ads, and today CA-26's Russ Warner will hold a rally at David Dreier's San Dimas office, to protest his vote against S-CHIP. 850,000 children in California alone will be negatively impacted by this vote, so it's a huge issue here. Details for the rally on the flip.
I've been late on my Congressional roundup for September; I'll probably get it up by the end of the week. But I did want to wait and see which way House Republicans would vote on expanding SCHIP, a priority for the state and for the Governor. Voting to leave sick children out in the cold is almost impossibly cruel, and will get the great big spotlight it deserves in 2008. So how did they vote?
Mary Bono voted yes. That's it. Every single other California House Republican voted to deny poor children health insurance. John Doolittle, no. Jerry Lewis, no. Ken Calvert, no. Gary Miller, no. Brian Bilbray, no. And David Dreier, not only no, but here's a quote:
"It dramatically expands the welfare state," said Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif.
I think Russ Warner just got the ammo he needed. Somehow Republicans think this vote won't boomerang back on them.
Because a veto is expected, much of the attention Tuesday was on the political fallout. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., chairman of the Republican congressional campaign committee, said Republicans will support a less costly compromise. "I don't think it will be a decisive bill in the 2008 elections," he said.
They're wrong. And even though I believe that the Democratic majority is committed enough to this program that they will keep voting on it until they get a veto-proof majority (they're 24 votes away as it is), this vote will not be forgotten. The ads will be written. And the price will be paid.
I've said a number of times that if the Governor was serious about health care reform, he needed to follow the lead of other Governors and demand that the President reverse his decision to both veto S-CHIP expansion and make it nearly impossible for states to help provide health care to as many children as possible by putting onerous new eligibility requirements on the states. I'm pleased to say that he has followed through on one of these goals, and today Schwarzenegger and Gov. Spitzer of New York write to the President.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing new rules that will set Medicaid and state programs back forty years. These rules, which are being promulgated without proper review, impose eligibility standards that would both deny health care to vulnerable children and pregnant women and greatly restrict the flexibility of states to reach your administration's stated goals of efficiently providing coverage. The rules must be withdrawn [...]
California and New York cover more than 1.4 million children and pregnant women using State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) funds - nearly one out of every four SCHIP recipients in the country. We have a long and productive relationship with CMS in leveraging SCHIP to innovatively provide maximum benefit with minimum resources.
We agree with your push for states to be a force for change in the delivery of health care to tens of millions of our fellow Americans who remain without meaningful coverage. But as you rally governors to do more to help fix our broken health care system, your administration has repeatedly modified existing Medicaid and SCHIP rules, harming states' capacity to help you achieve our shared objectives.
The recently proposed SCHIP rules will reverse longstanding agreements with the states and reduce the number of children who receive health care. We strongly urge you to reconsider these recent policy changes, which simply diminish state flexibility.
Caring for children really isn't a Democratic or Republican issue. The Bush Administration wants to have it both ways, shirking the responsibility for health care onto the states while making it impossible for the states to carry out such a mission. The White House has an ideological obsession with not allowing this successful program to be expanded; then people might think they can actually receive health care from a government program they pay for in taxes. The horrors! Good for the Governor on this one.
Dan Weintraub notes that legislative leaders are meeting today with the governor about the future of healthcare reform. Here's his thumbnail sketch:
The Republican lawmakers have been pretty clear about their opposition to mandates and taxes, which both the Democrats and the governor have as the centerpiece of their plans. But if you leave the Republicans out, then a pay-or-play employer mandate appears to be the only option that can pass on a majority vote, and the governor says he opposes that narrow approach. It looks as if they are going to have to regroup and think about taking the issue to the ballot with a different tax structure, no employer mandate and a broad coalition of support...
We know that Sen. Perata has been subdued about the chances for anything happening this year. And we know that anything resembling a fee will be written off by the no-new-taxes Republicans, even when the governor is attempting to rally support for a fee structure that allows hospitals to get federal money for every dollar they put into an insurance pool. The other major stumbling block is the fact that Republicans and business interests will almost certainly sue the state over whatever proposal is passed into law, either for violating the ERISA statute that prevents states from regulating employer-based plans, or for imposing fees on businesses that would require a 2/3 vote in the legislature. That will happen no matter what gets passed, and yet nobody talks about it.
The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children's Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.
Administration officials outlined the new standards in a letter sent to state health officials on Friday evening, in the middle of a month-long Congressional recess. In interviews, they said the changes were aimed at returning the Children's Health Insurance Program to its original focus on low-income children and to make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage.
The S-CHIP program works, states want more of their kids to be covered, and in the long run it's far more affordable than allowing the uninsured to use the emergency room as their primary care physician.
Doesn't matter to this President. Wouldn't want people to get the idea that they can get decent health care. (over)
I've been watching the debate in the Congress over expanding S-CHIP (the State Children's Health Insurance Program) today while waiting for my plane travel to Yearly Kos, and I'm reminded of how dishonest Republicans are on this issue. They created the block grant program to give states the ability to cover children, and now when it's become popular and successful, and state governors want to expand it more, they suddenly want to stop it. And they're using the familiar "this would let illegal immigrants get free health care" canard to try and submarine the bill (incidentally, it doesn't).
It's important to chronicle this, because it's the opening salvo in the battle to change the health care system in this country. In California we're gearing up for health care reform, and today The California Budget Project and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research released a joint report that ably shows the consequences of maintaining the broken status quo on health care as the Republicans want to do:
