Senate passes expansion of children’s health insurance

Yesterday the Senate voted to reauthorize and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. This will provide new federal funds to North Carolina and give us the opportunity to cover all children and parents in the state. Sen. Hagan voted for the expansion and Sen. Burr voted against it.

With a generous federal match NC will be able to continue covering more than 170,000 children through Health Choice, and we can cover an additional 40,000 children through NC Kids’ Care. Now we need to fund Kids’ Care for families making up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level and allow those households making more money to buy into the program at full cost.

There are two good reasons for expanding SCHIP to more families in our state. First, in the economic downturn people in all income ranges are touched by job losses and insurance problems. We need to make sure these families have an affordable option when private insurance is too expensive. Second, we are taught to think that the federal poverty guidelines are a realistic estimate of how much it costs to sustain a family. But as the Budget & Tax Center shows with its living income standard calculator, in many counties a family needs to make 250 percent of federal poverty level just to pay for basic expenses.

In an economic downturn health insurance is more, not less, important. Before our state started racing toward double-digit unemployment rates North Carolinians were losing employer-sponsored insurance at twice the national rate. Currently, when families lose insurance, there is no strong safety net other than free clinics and emergency rooms; and those are stop gaps, not solutions to our health care crisis.

This year let’s make sure that all children and parents have access to affordable, quality health coverage. That would certainly be something worth remembering.