Lawmakers Move Ahead With SCHIP Legislation

The current SCHIP program costs about $5 billion per year.

President Bush supports increasing SCHIP funding by $5 billion to $7 billion over 5 years. He also wants to tighten the focus of SCHIP to emphasize coverage for low-income and moderate-income children, rather than letting states use SCHIP money to cover low-income adults and higher-income children.

Otherwise, SCHIP could encourage people who now have private health coverage to move into government plans, Bush says.

"Instead of encouraging people to drop private coverage for government programs, the president believes we should work to make basic private health insurance affordable for all Americans," White House officials say in a fact sheet. "The best way to do this is by reforming the tax code to level the playing field, so those who buy health insurance on their own get the same tax advantage as those who get health insurance through their jobs."

America's Health Insurance Plans, Washington, supports SCHIP expansion but opposes cuts in Medicare Advantage funding.

"We don't think it is a fair trade-off to take money away from 8 million seniors to support a massive expansion of the SCHIP," AHIP spokesman Mohit Ghose says. "We do not believe that seniors and MA plans should lose benefits and have to pay higher out-of-pocket costs in order to provide funding for SCHIP."