HFMA seeks protection of SCHIP funding - HFMA News - the State Children's Health Insurance Program - Brief Article

Healthcare Financial Management, April, 2003

HFMA has joined 12 other healthcare organizations in sending a comment letter to Congress expressing strong support for bipartisan legislation introduced to restore funding to the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The letter urges Congress to protect SCHIP funds and thereby maintain the progress that SCHIP has made getting healthcare services to more of America's children.

In FY02, $1.2 billion in SCHIP funds reverted to the federal treasury, and at the end of FY03, another $1.5 billion in SCHIP funding will face the same fate. Last year, Congress failed to pass a bipartisan consensus proposal to keep these funds from expiring. The legislation, introduced by Representatives Billy Tauzin (R-La.) and John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and John Rockefeller (D-W.V.), would restore these funds through FY04. To read the coalition letter, go to www.hfma.org/resource/HALOFinal SCH1I021303.pdf.