Spitzer Faces Uphill Battle On Health Care

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Regardless of whether Congress overrides President Bush’s expected veto of a health care bill for children, Governor Spitzer will face an uphill battle to make good on his promise to extend public health care coverage to tens of thousands more children.

Mr. Spitzer said yesterday that New York is pressing ahead with a lawsuit against the Bush administration that seeks to roll back federal guidelines that effectively prevent New York and other states from expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to include children in families with incomes significantly above the federal poverty level. Seven other states are expected to join the lawsuit either as plaintiffs or by filing supporting briefs.

The governor announced his intention to file the lawsuit a day before Mr. Bush is expected to veto a $35 billion, five-year expansion of the Schip program, which provides insurance to children not covered by Medicaid. While Democratic House leaders are trying to secure enough votes for an override, Republicans say they are confident they would sustain a presidential veto.

New York’s lawsuit, however, would apply to federal rules that would be supplanted by a new eligibility policy set into law if Congress overrides the veto.

If the bill becomes law, Mr. Spitzer would still be prohibited from implementing his plan to raise the eligibility cap to four times the poverty level, or $82,600 for a family of four.

Under the legislation, after October 1, 2010, states will not be allowed to cover children whose family incomes exceed 300% of the poverty level if the states do not already cover a sufficient number of lower-income children.

Only states that have public and private coverage rates that exceed the average of the top 10 state rates in the nation would be granted permission. New York currently does not meet that standard.

Congress may choose to pass an extension of the current Schip program, leaving the federal guidelines in place. In that case, the future of Mr. Spitzer’s Schip proposal would likely hinge on the success of his lawsuit, which is to be filed in the federal court for the Southern District of New York.

Mr. Spitzer says the Bush administration violated the Schip law by denying New York’s expansion plan partly on the grounds that the state was covering too few lower-income children.

While the Schip program gives states flexibility to define targeted income levels, the Bush administration will argue that New York is seeking to expand eligibility to a degree that contradicts the intent of Congress.

Under Mr. Spitzer’s proposal, New York would have the most lenient eligibility requirement in the nation.

“We are confident that our requirements are appropriate and will be sustained in a court of law,” a spokesman for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Jeff Nelligan, said.


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