Kids Health Targeted
Health Care for every kid in Colorado?
Business, health leaders join to push for national system
By bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News
July, 12 2007
A new coalition of Colorado business and health leaders has joined an ambitious drive to get health insurance for virtually every child in the state and nation.
The battle promises to be uphill.
President Bush wants Congress to authorize $5 billion in the next five years for nationwide State Children’s Health Insurance Program, aimed at the kids of working-class parents.
But members of the SCHIP Colorado Coalition say 10 times that amount - $50 billion - is needed to cover all states.
Under Bush’s proposal, half the 57,000 kids enrolled in the Colorado plan would have to be kicked of the rolls, they say. And the 50,000 now eligible for the program, but not enrolled would have no chance.
The $50 billion plan has the support of Gov. Bill Ritter, most of the nation’s other governors, most of the nation’s other governors, most Democratic members of Congress and quite few Republicans.
Between those tow figures is the $14 billion that the General Accounting Office says would fund SCHIP over five years - if enrollment stayed steady.
But it won’t, said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. It will only go up, she said.
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