SCHIP Veto Sustained

H.R. 976, the State Children’s Health insurance Program (SCHIP) reauthorization bill, officially died as the House was unable to override the President’s veto, voting 273-156, falling 13 votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority. While six of the eight Democrats who votes against the bill’s initial passage chose to support the override, no Republicans changed their vote, choosing instead to send the issue back to committee. Now, the House and Senate, will each go back to the beginning, and craft new proposals.

Wasting no time, House Minority leader John Boehner (R-OH), introduced H.R. 3888, the More Children More Choices Act. The bill would fund the program at $7 billion per year until 2012 and at $8 billion thereafter. The legislation also includes a $1,400 tax credit for insured and uninsured children between 200 percent and 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Democratic leaders, however, were quick to dismiss the bill, which falls far below their proposal of funding SCHIP at $60 billion a year over the next five years. While Democrats may be willing to compromise, such a drastic cut in their proposal is not likely to gain any substantial support.

Meanwhile, with H.R. 976 being put to rest, the amendment dealing with a moratorium on the Department of Health and Human Services restricting, “coverage or payment under title XIX of the Social Security Act for rehabilitation services, or school-based administration, transportation, or medical services if such restrictions are more restrictive in any aspect than those applied to such coverage or payment as of July 1, 2007” is now in limbo. The moratorium would have lasted through May 2008, giving Congress additional time to find a more permanent solution to efforts by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to discontinue payments for non-medical payments to schools.

With the bill’s demise, the moratorium language now needs a new legislative vehicle. The most likely candidate now is either an individual appropriations bill, such as the Labor-HHS-Education bill currently on the Senate floor, or as part of the large omnibus appropriations bill that Congress will likely pass in the next month or two. The CMS proposed rule is currently in its public comment period, through early November. After that, there is an indeterminate amount of time for the Office of Management and Budget to approve the final rule and its eventual implementation. As such, Congress may find itself racing the clock to place a moratorium on the rule before CMS puts it into effect.

Resources:
Drew Armstrong, “Failure to Override SCHIP Veto Sends Democrats Back to Drawing Board, “CQ Today, October 18, 2007.
Stephen Langel, “Lawmakers Begin Search for SCHIP Compromise,” Congress Now, October 18, 2007.
Author: SAS