Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on October 11, 2007

Click here to view bill details.

-SCHIP does a bad job of targeting assistance. About 60 percent of children currently eligible for SCHIP already have private health insurance, while 77 percent of those targeted by this expansion (i.e., children between 200-300 percent of the federal poverty level) already have private health insurance. - SCHIP covers four uninsured children for the price of ten. Economists Jonathan Gruber and Kosali Simon estimate that, in effect, 60 percent of children covered by SCHIP expansions already had private coverage. - There is no evidence that SCHIP is the best way to improve the health of targeted children. Economists have found no evidence that SCHIP is a cost-effective way of improving health. Discrete health programs or policies that improve incomes or education could deliver as much or more health for the money. - SCHIP discourages families from climbing the economic ladder. If a single mother of two earning minimum wage in New Mexico increases her annual earnings by $30,000, she pays an additional $4,000 in taxes and loses $26,000 in SCHIP and other government benefits. In other words, her net income would not change, therefore she has no financial incentive to climb the economic ladder. Expanding SCHIP would put downward pressure on even more families’ incomes, which could harm child health. - Like Medicaid, SCHIP makes private coverage less affordable for people outside the program. Under Medicaid (and therefore SCHIP) rules, the government agrees to pay a percentage of what drug makers charge private payers. Economists have found that manufacturers respond by raising prices for private purchasers an estimated 15 percent. - SCHIP would do nothing to address systemic quality problems. According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Expansion of access to care through insurance coverage, which is the focus of national health care policy related to children, will not, by itself, eliminate the deficits in the quality of care.” SCHIP’s self-interested advocates. Why do you suppose the physician, pharmaceutical, and health insurance lobbies are agitating for health care subsidies that lack any evidence of cost-effectiveness? - This SCHIP expansion taxes the poor to benefit the middle class. Isn’t that just cruel? Eliminating SCHIP and letting people purchase coverage from out-of-state is a better alternative. The latter would enable families to avoid unnecessary regulatory costs, which the Congressional Budget Office puts at about 15 percent of health premiums. That would benefit SCHIP-targeted families most of all. And it would do so without raising anyone’s taxes, showering subsidies on non-needy families, pulling families into a low-wage trap, or increasing the cost of private insurance. As for eliminating SCHIP, when Congress cut non-citizen immigrants from the Medicaid rolls, contrary to all predictions the number of uninsured non-citizen immigrants actually fell. Why wouldn’t SCHIP families, who are more affluent, fare even better? If you’re not interested in the best way to promote child health, not interested in targeting government assistance to the needy, and not concerned about trapping families in low-wage jobs…exactly what is it you are hoping to accomplish?

Senator Clark-Coleman's statement is as follows: Mr.President and my colleagues, I would like to speak on my reason why I voted "no" on postponing Senate Resolution No.117 for the day. Because of the urgency of this matter, the U.S. House is prepared to vote as early as today on whether to override President Bush's veto of the bipartisan bill to reauthorize and expand the state's SCHIP program, which is the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Mr.President, I went to an event down in Detroit at DMC in which folks from all over this country were there and there was a young lady there who spoke eloquently on why it was important for us to reauthorize this SCHIP program because her daughter had been a product of cancer, and had it not been for the SCHIP program, that young lady would not be here today. The young lady was there and she spoke about all the medications and all the services and all the help she received at Detroit's Children's Hospital as result of this wonderful program. She urged us to reauthorize this. Now this is not a partisan issue at all. SCHIP currently covers 6.6 million low-income children across the country whose families are not eligible for Medicaid but who cannot afford private health insurance. Tens of thousands of Michigan children currently rely on MIChild, Michigan's SCHIP program. We need to send a message, a clear message to Congress today and we need our representatives to override this SCHIP because we need its health care coverage for the children in Michigan. We often speak that we want what's best for the children. If you really want what's best for the children, then you will urge your congressional folks to override this veto. The Catholic Health Association, the American Medical Association, the AARP, the March of Dimes, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other medical, religious, and community service organizations all are saying we cannot wait. They all support the bipartisan compromise to reauthorize SCHIP that was passed by the U.S. House and Senate and then vetoed by President Bush. I urge my colleagues to support this motion. The reason that we are not able to take it up is because it was postponed. So I am very sorry that they postponed it, but I certainly cannot, I cannot, I cannot state clearly how important it is that we protect the children of this country. We all talk about values, family values; well, then let's put our money where our mouth is and let's get behind an initiative that is going to protect these children and going to give health care to these children. We cannot sit on our laurels and allow this bill to go by without overriding this horrendous veto. We love these children. We have to support these children.

Senator Clarke's statement is as follows: I rise to give my "no" vote explanation on why I oppose the motion to postpone the vote on the resolution regarding the President's veto of the SCHIP program, and I request that the U.S. Congress override that veto. As the Senator for Detroit and Dearborn so eloquently stated, the State Children's Health Insurance Program is designed to protect and cover our young people who live in families that make too much money to be eligible for Medicaid, but don't make enough money to pay for private health insurance. This Congress and this Legislature has decided as a matter of policy that we need to protect our young people from childhood diseases because those illnesses, if left untreated, could permanently disable or cripple a child and cause them to suffer from chronic illnesses that could prevent them from getting a good education and leading a productive life. The current SCHIP program in Michigan is the MI Child program. The MIChild program does not cover wealthy people, nor would the proposed expansion of the SCHIP program. As a matter of fact, under the federal proposal, 90percent of the families that would be covered under this expanded SCHIP program make no more than $41,000 a year and have a family of four. That's almost less than what we make here in the Legislature for a family of four. That's not rich. These are people who are in need. They make some money, they are working, they cannot afford Medicaid, but they're struggling right now. Now here in this state, in Michigan, this is very important because we have so many wage earners who have so little equity in their homes that they are facing foreclosure, and not only that, they are facing homelessness because they have no other recourse but to abandon their property. We have high wage earners in this state who have lost their paychecks due to globalization. It's not fair to expect the government to insure every family for every risk, but the fact is right now in Michigan, even the most soundly middle-class family can be on the verge of financial ruin. Let's at least protect our children from serious illness. Let's ask the Congress to override the President's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program and give all children a chance for a great future.

Senator Schauer's statement is as follows: I rise in support of this motion to discharge the Senate Appropriations Committee from further consideration of Senate Resolution No.117, and I will be speaking directly to the importance of the discharge. Colleagues, this is not a partisan or political issue. Its timing is critical for the Michigan Senate to act to join the Michigan House of Representatives. The Michigan House of Representatives adopted House Resolution No.201 and House Concurrent Resolution No.51 with overwhelming bipartisan support 72 votes and 71 votes, respectively. This is a about Michigan's children; this is about coverage for them. I absolutely plan to speak directly to the immediacy in the necessity of this discharge. Within hours, literally, within hours the U.S. House of Representatives will be voting to override a veto by PresidentBush of a bipartisan bill to provide health insurance to millions of children in this country. This bill, if adopted, would provide coverage to an additional 80,000 children in our state--children of working poor families. It is important for us to act today because much is at risk in our state and what is at risk is insurance coverage for low-income children in our state. This is not a partisan issue, colleagues. Three Republican members of our congressional delegation, Fred Upton, Vern Ehlers, and Candice Miller, all supported this measure. I would urge this body to join them and vote in a bipartisan way as was done in the Michigan House to immediately send a message that both the Michigan House and the Michigan Senate in a bipartisan way support the override of the President's veto, so that thousands, tens of thousands of children in our state can receive important health care coverage.