Law adds 4M kids to program

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama signed a bill Wednesday extending health coverage to 4 million uninsured children.

“This is good. This is good,” a smiling Obama said as he entered the East Room for the packed, ebullient signing ceremony.

The bill went to the White House fresh from passage in the Democratic-controlled House, on a vote of 290-135. Forty Republicans joined in approval.

The bill calls for spending an additional $32.8 billion on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, which now enrolls an estimated 7 million children. Lawmakers generated that revenue by raising the federal tobacco tax.

SCHIP was created more than a decade ago to help children in families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford private coverage.

In Ohio, reauthorization preserves coverage for about 230,000 children enrolled in the program. The funding increase will also help the state extend coverage to children from families making 300 percent of the federal poverty level.

Ohio currently covers children from families making up to 200 percent of the poverty level, but Gov. Ted Strickland’s two-year budget proposal funds coverage for up to 35,000 additional children.

Obama said adding 4 million children to the program was a key step toward his promise of universal health care coverage for all.

“We fulfill one of the highest responsibilities that we have, to ensure the health and well-being of our nation’s children,” the president said before a cheering audience of families, lawmakers and interest groups. “Providing coverage to 11 million children is a downpayment on my commitment to cover every single American.”

Republicans criticized the cost of the legislation. They also said it will mean an estimated 2.4 million children who otherwise would have access to private insurance will join the State Children’s Health Insurance Program instead.

“The Democrats continue to push their government-run health care agenda — universal coverage, as they call it,” said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas.

The bill’s passage has long been a top priority of Democratic lawmakers. In late 2007, President George W. Bush twice vetoed similar bills. The Senate passed the same bill last week. Obama made it a top priority in his first 100 days and one step in his push for universal coverage by the end of his first term.

“President Obama and Congress are demonstrating that change has come to Washington, and we are moving forward to improve the quality of life for American families struggling during these hard times,” said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Federal money for SCHIP was set to expire March 31, barring action by Congress. To cover the increase in spending, the bill would boost the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes by 62 cents, to $1.01 a pack.

Opponents of the bill complained that the tobacco tax increase hits the poor the hardest, because they are more likely to smoke than wealthier people. Many also took exception to expanding the program and Medicaid to children of newly arrived legal immigrants.

Republicans said they supported SCHIP and providing additional money for the program. But they argued that Democrats were taking the program beyond its original intent by encouraging states to cover middle-class families who could get private insurance.

Health officials project that there are about 9 million uninsured children in the U.S. The American Cancer Society predicted that the tax increase would reduce youth smoking by about 7 percent and overall cigarette consumption by 4 percent.