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Congress Delays SCHIP Funding Shortfalls in 2007 by Several Months |
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Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: The provision will redistribute existing unspent federal SCHIP funds to some of the 17 states that face shortfalls. The provision will provide only about one-fifth of the funds needed to fully close the shortfalls for the full fiscal year; it is designed to delay the onset of the funding shortfalls for several months. Otherwise, the 17 states will have to scale back their SCHIP programs, placing several hundred thousand low-income children at risk of losing health care coverage, unless they can come up with new state funds to fully plug the hole. Passage of the SCHIP provision of H.R. 6164 is a welcome development, particularly since Congress had, only the day before, appeared ready to ignore the SCHIP shortfall issue when it removed a similar SCHIP provision from the tax extenders package. In the final days of the Congressional session, some members of Congress cited the lack of offsetting savings in entitlement spending and/or of offsetting revenue increases to ensure no increase in the deficit as a reason to reject SCHIP measures that would fully close the 2007 shortfalls. We note that the estimated $921 million shortfall in 2007 highlighted in our November analysis assumes the redistribution of 2004 funds consistent with this prior practice.
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