O'PAKE SPONSORS SENATE RESOLUTION & WRITES PRESIDENT BUSH
URGING REVERSAL OF RESTRICTIVE CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE GUIDELINES

         Harrisburg, September 19, 2007 -- With a Senate resolution and in a letter to President George W. Bush, Senator Michael A. O'Pake (D-Berks) is urging the reversal of a recently announced federal restriction that would limit the ability of states, including Pennsylvania, to cover more children under their Children's Health Insurance programs.
         O'Pake said the August 17 edict from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services "jeopardizes Pennsylvania's newly enacted Cover All Kids initiative" which expanded subsidized CHIP coverage to more children.
         The new guidelines, if not reversed, would require states to enroll at least 95 percent of eligible children under 200 percent of poverty before they could expand coverage to more low to middle income children.  In addition, the new rules would require children to go without health insurance for a year before they could obtain coverage through CHIP.
         "This edict is ridiculous," O'Pake said in Senate floor remarks, noting that while Pennsylvania is doing everything it can to insure all low income children, the 95 percent threshold is unrealistic and "nothing more than an attempt by our federal administration to limit state flexibility to expand coverage to more children."
         In addition to urging the reversal of the new federal rule, O'Pake's letter and Senate resolution also urges the President to retreat from his threatened veto of the compromise federal State Children's Health Insurance Program reauthorization and funding measure working its way through Congress.
         "Let us not roll back the clock on a program that is providing more children with the health care they deserve," O'Pake wrote Bush.  "Surely," he added in his letter to the White House, "last resort hospital emergency room care for children whose parents can't afford insurance should not be our nation's health care policy for kids going forward."

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Full Text of Senator O'Pake's 9/19/07 state Senate Floor Remarks:

          Madame President.  I rise today to urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in co-sponsoring and securing action as quickly as possible on a Senate Resolution to send a message to our federal government in Washington, D.C. that as the debate continues to unfold on the scope of reauthorization and funding of the federal State Children's Health Insurance Program that this body...the Senate of Pennsylvania... stands firmly in the corner of helping to insure children who still lack the health care coverage they deserve.

          Madame President, it was nearly 15 years ago that this Senate on November 23, 1992 -- during a very tumultuous time in this body as political control of this chamber had changed from one party to the other -- was able to put our partisan squabble aside long enough to come together and pass on a near unanimous vote of 48-1 the long-sought and landmark Pennsylvania Children's Health Insurance Program.
 
          Signed into law by our departed friend, the late Governor Robert P. Casey, on December 2, 1992, our law to give the children of families who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance the coverage and healthy start in life they deserve became a model for the nation.  Five years later, in 1997, our federal government became a partner in this effort with the enactment of the federal State Children's Health Insurance Program. 
    
          Together, over the past 15 years, our state program in combination with the federal program has enabled more than 640,000 individual Pennsylvania children to obtain the health coverage they otherwise would have gone without.
  
          It was a little less than a year ago, meanwhile, on October 23, 2006, that this Senate voted 50-0 to join our colleagues in the state House and Governor Rendell in the passage of House Bill 2699 to make our state's CHIP program even better -- to raise the bar so that even more children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance can receive the health care they deserve.

          In fact, our expanded program is now in effect.  And, it became effective in February of this year when the federal government gave its stamp of approval.

          But, Madame President, as is often the case with our federal government, there are today mixed signals.

          On August 17, Dennis Smith, the Director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a bureaucratic edict that no fair analysis can dispute would undermine the effort of Pennsylvania to move forward with our "Cover All Kids" initiative.

         Among these new restrictive guidelines are requirements that the states cannot provide expanded coverage to children from lower middle class families unless they enroll at least 95 percent of eligible children under 200 percent of the poverty level...and that children must go one year without health insurance before they are able to enroll. 

          Madame President, this edict is ridiculous.  While Pennsylvania is doing everything it can to try to make sure that all children under 200 percent of poverty are enrolled, the 95 percent statistical threshold before coverage can be expanded to others is nothing more than an attempt by our federal administration limit state flexibility to expand coverage to more children.  Pennsylvania has a six month wait for coverage.  The doubling of that time frame to one year jeopardizes the health of children. 

          Very simply, Madame President, my Senate resolution calls on the Bush administration to rescind these new restrictive guidelines that would limit the flexibility of the states to expand CHIP coverage while at the same time it urges our President to retreat from his threatened veto of the compromise S-CHIP reauthorization and funding measure working its way through Congress. 

          It follows on the heels of the letter sent Monday, signed by Governor Rendell, and the governors of 29 other states of both parties, urging federal Health and Welfare Secretary Michael Leavitt to reverse the requirements articulated in the August 17 letter that -- according to the Governors -- could cause hundreds of thousands of our nation's children to lose health coverage and which amounts "to a unilateral restriction on state authority to provide health insurance coverage for children" and "undermines the foundation of the state-federal partnership upon which S-CHIP was built." 

          Madame President, it is time for this Senate to take a stand too.

          Let us join in this call to prevent a roll back of the clock on a program that is providing more children with the health care they deserve.        Thank you, Madame President.

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Text of Senator O'Pake's 9/18/07 letter to President Bush:

Honorable George W. Bush, President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C.  20500 

Dear President Bush: 

            I am writing to respectfully urge you and your administration to seriously rethink and abandon your current posture of seeking to restrict eligibility under the federal State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) for children from families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance.  I urge you to rescind the dictate of new rules to limit the scope of the program as articulated by letter from Dennis Smith of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to the states on August 17 and to retreat from your veto threat of the compromise SCHIP reauthorization and funding measure working its way through Congress. 

            It was 15 years ago in 1992 -- under the leadership of the highly respected late Governor Robert P. Casey -- that Pennsylvania became a model for the nation with our overwhelming bipartisan enactment of Pennsylvania's landmark Children's Health Insurance Program (HB 20, Act 113/1992).  It was five years later, in 1997, that the federal government joined as a partner in this effort with the enactment of the federal State Children's Health Insurance Program.  Since the inception of both our state and the federal program, more than 640,000 Pennsylvania children who otherwise would have been denied the health care they deserve have been insured through CHIP.  Now, Pennsylvania -- with the approval of your very own administration -- is moving forward in implementing our "Cover All Kids" plan (HB 2699, Act 136/2006) that provides free coverage for children from families below 200% of poverty, low-cost subsidized coverage for children from families between 200% and 300% of poverty, and "at cost" coverage for children from families above 300% of poverty.  Today, with participation on the rise with each passing month, more than 164,400 Pennsylvania children are insured through CHIP. 

            Surely, last resort hospital emergency room care for children whose parents can't afford insurance should not be our nation's health care policy for kids going forward.  Let us not roll back the clock on a program that is providing more children with the health care they deserve.  Thank you for your consideration of this request. 

                                                                                                Sincerely, 

Michael A. O’Pake
Senator -- 11th District

CC:    Honorable Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary
          U.S. Department of Health and Human Services