Chipping the S Off SCHIP-Federal Power Grap

Sarah Lueck reports on children’s health care legislation.
Even the name of a popular program to help provide health insurance to kids not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid is becoming a partisan fight on Capitol Hill.
The program has always been called the “State Children’s Health Insurance Program,” but the acronym CHIP was always catchier and most Democrats and Republicans used it initially. Occasionally, there were references to SCHIP or even CHIPS — and there were jokes about making sure Chip Kahn, then a House aide and now the head of a hospital trade association didn’t think the bill was about him.
In 1999, an aide to Republican Rep. Tom Bliley, then chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, slipped a provision in a health bill that required agencies and official documents to call the program SCHIP. Conservatives wanted to underscore states’ role, emphasizing that it wasn’t supposed to be a federally run bureaucracy. Now that Republicans are seeking to put limits on state options for coverage to control costs, Democrats are turning this old argument back on Republicans.
The Wall Street Journal usually used CHIP until the Bush administration took power and began to call the program SCHIP. Now, with Democrats in control of Congress, Senate and House bills would change the name back to CHIP.
“We think the program is for children not states,” says a Democratic aide, explaining the party’s preference for dropping the “S.” A few Republicans are on their side. Says Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch: “I am pleased that this bill changes the name SCHIP back to CHIP, the way it was before the House added the superfluous ‘S’.”

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“We think the program is for children not states,”

Before every term in office our Representatives should have to take a class on the Constitution. It is states that should run these type programs. Our Founders did not give those powers to the Federal government so they should stay with the states. It dosent matter if children health insurance is good or not we have to respect the Constitution. If we dont we might as well give up our freedom because we refuse to hold Government accountable.

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