LANSING – State Representative Lee Gonzales (D-Flint Township) today supported a state House resolution calling on the U.S. Congress to take action by overriding President George W. Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Care Program (SCHIP). SCHIP is a federal program that provides insurance coverage to targeted low-income children who are uninsured but not eligible for Medicaid.
Since 1997, the SCHIP program has allocated more than $40 billion in children's health insurance funding to states to expand its Medicaid program or to implement a combined program relying on Medicaid and separate private plans. The bipartisan S-CHIP bill was recently passed by the U.S. House and Senate, and then vetoed by President Bush. The measure that was vetoed would have added $35 billion over the next five years to cover 10 million children across the U.S.
Michigan uses SCHIP funds to administer the MI Child program, which provides insurance coverage to approximately 55,000 children throughout the state each year, as well as 65,000 very low income adults under the Adult Benefits Waiver. MI Child covers regular check ups, shots, emergency care, dental care, pharmacy, hospital care, prenatal care and delivery, vision and hearing, mental health and substance abuse, and other vital areas for our kids. Since MI Child started in 1997, the number of uninsured children declined by 26.6 percent, resulting in nearly 79,000 more children having health care coverage than 10 years ago.