SCHIP Counterattacks

State Children's Health Insurance Program


H.R. 976, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 (CHIP Act):


  • Reauthorizes the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) for five years.
  • Covers a projected 4.7 million more uninsured children, in addition to the 6 million children already enrolled.
  • Provides $35 billion in new funding for SCHIP over five years, on top of the current $25 billion baseline.
  • Pays for the expansion with a 61-cent-per-pack cigarette tax increase and increases in taxes on other tobacco products.

More legislative details are available in this American Medical Association chart.

Comebacks and Counterattacks


Conservative Spin
Progressive Response
Expanding SCHIP is really about moving us towards socialized medicine. Unlike conservatives, a majority of Americans believe our government should play a role in guaranteeing health insurance for all, especially the 8.7 million children who today have no health insurance. And SCHIP is a government initiative that has proven effective in covering children. Thanks to SCHIP, America’s children are more widely covered than adults. It’s just common sense to expand what we know works.
Expanding SCHIP will force middle-class Americans to drop private insurance in favor of public assistance. Of the families enrolled in SCHIP, the vast majority (86 percent) were uninsured at the time they enrolled. Most of the remaining families who dropped private insurance in favor of SCHIP did so because their plan was so expensive, they could not afford to properly cover their children. No one satisfied with their current insurance is required to join SCHIP.
The SCHIP bill will use your taxpayer dollars to give insurance to all families of four earning $83,000. SCHIP was designed to give states flexibility—within reasonable limits—to set their own standards, meet their needs, and adapt to their cost of living and insurance. According to Congressional Quarterly, "Under current law, only the president can authorize states to use SCHIP to cover families earning $83,000, and Bush has declined to do so. The bill he vetoed would not change that procedure, and would discourage states from expanding SCHIP to families making three times the federal poverty level or more—$61,950 for a family of four."
The SCHIP bill allows illegal immigrants to receive health insurance. People who are in the country illegally are still banned from receiving SCHIP benefits.

For More Information

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: "The Administration’s Dubious Claims About the Emerging Children’s Health Insurance Legislation"

In These Times: "The Bush Administration’s New Target: Uninsured Kids".

Kaiser Family Foundation: SCHIP Reauthorization

Cover The Uninsured: About SCHIP


Click here to learn why we're fighting for SCHIP


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