Health firms push for veto override

About 2,300 child visits to Memorial Hospital this year were covered by a state program that provides insurance for children who don’t qualify for Medicaid but whose families can’t afford private insurance.

The program serves about 56,000 children throughout Colorado.

Now its main funding source is the subject of a political showdown between Congress and the administration. President Bush vetoed a bill this week that would have reauthorized the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, and increased funding for it by $35 billion. Congress is preparing to vote on a possible veto override in the next two weeks.

The bill received strong bi- partisan support, but Bush and supporters of his veto, including Rep. Doug Lamborn and Sen. Wayne Allard, both Colorado Republicans, said it would expand the program to include too many middle-income children and step too close to government-run health care.

They support a more limited reauthorization of the program.

Although some states would lose their insurance programs as early as November if the veto stands and no alternative is reached, Colorado’s program, called the Child Health Plan Plus, can survive up to two years on current reserves and state money, said Bill Heller, who oversees it. That’s with no significant changes in costs, state funding or enrollment.

Still, with just half of the state’s 97,000 eligible children enrolled in the program, he and other health officials say the need calls for more than just survival.

About 9,000 children in El Paso County are eligible and not enrolled, mostly because people don’t know about the program or realize they qualify.

Local health organizations, including Memorial Health System, Penrose-St. Francis Health Services and Peak Vista Community Health Centers, have joined others throughout the state in pushing for Colorado’s delegation to support a veto override.

Lorez Meinhold is spokeswoman for the Colorado SCHIP Coalition, which formed last spring to follow the legislation and represents 30 organizations. They include hospitals, business, educational, and faith-based groups. She said most of the state’s health organizations have publicly opposed Bush’s veto.

“A lot of people see this (program) as a safety net for low-income children,” she said.

State and local health care experts say the issues raised by the White House of being too generous with eligibility and taking away from privatization don’t apply in Colorado. Here, eligible families must earn no more than about twice the poverty line. A family of four could earn about $41,000 a year. The insurance is provided in a public/private partnership, not by Medicaid or a Medicaid-lookalike, Heller said.

Doctors and dentists at Peak Vista, a nonprofit organization that provides health services for financially struggling families in El Paso and Teller counties, see about half of El Paso County’s 2,800 children enrolled in the state insurance program, said Chief Executive Officer B.J. Scott.

The organization receives about $500,000 a year in revenue through the program. Even so, Peak Vista’s bill for uncompensated care is about $7 million a year, she said.

The Colorado insurance program, funded 65 percent from SCHIP and 35 percent from state funds, isn’t a moneymaker for health care providers, said John Suits, associate administrator of business and government affairs for Memorial. Memorial and Penrose each are reimbursed no more than 20 cents from the program for every dollar spent on medical care, said Suits and Penrose-St. Francis Chief Financial Officer Mike Scialdone.

Yet there are cost savings, Suits and others say, in keeping children healthy. Families without health care coverage tend to put off doctor’s visits and other medical treatment, which often results in a need for more serious care or an emergency room visit later.

“What we think SCHIP does,” Suits said, “is it encourages those kids to get into our system earlier, hopefully preventing a more serious or traumatic event down the road.”

Scialdone said Penrose-St. Francis does not specifically track how many patients it sees under SCHIP, but he said taking away any programs that help the uninsured leads to costs that are felt by everyone.

“Unfortunately, that just puts a further burden on the health care system in having to absorb those costs,” he said. “The fact of the matter is that one of the big costs in health care is the costs to help the uninsured.”

In Washington, D.C., the Senate appears to have enough votes to override the veto, but the House has become a battleground on the issue.

A veto override requires a two-thirds majority.

Although federal funding for the program was supposed to end Sept. 30, a temporary measure has extended it until November.

For Suits, it’s not about party lines or political philosophies. It’s about saving what he considers a successful state program.

“We don’t feel like politics should interfere in providing medical services, really to anybody but particularly to children.”

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DETAILS

Bush says the bill would broaden the program to include too many middle-income kids and step too close to government-run health care.