SCHIP Reauthorization: President’s Budget Would Provide Less than Half the Funds that States Need to Maintain SCHIP Enrollment

Publication Date: March 2007

Publisher: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Edwin Park; Matthew Broaddus

Research Area:

Keywords: Economic projections; Federal budget; State budgets; Health insurance

Type: Report

Abstract:

The President’s fiscal year 2008 budget proposes to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) for five years but provides less than half of the funding needed for states to maintain their existing SCHIP caseloads, let alone to make progress in covering more uninsured low-income children.  Under the President’s budget, we estimate that states would experience a total federal funding shortfall of $7 billion over the next five years.  (In other words, federal SCHIP funds would fall a total of $7 billion short of what will be needed to sustain states’ current programs.)