The Senate on Thursday approved the bill designed to provide health insurance to more than four million uninsured children. The bill is one of the top priorities of the health care program.

 

The legislation is similar to the program that was vetoed two years ago by then-President George W. Bush. The bill intended to expand coverage to low-income children, whose families earned too much for the Medicaid health plan for the poor. The measure would have expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance program by $35 million over five years and boosted its enrolment to about 10 million children.

 

The newly authorized Children’s Health Insurance Program is funded with a 62-cents-per pack tax on cigarettes.

The Senate bill was voted 66-32.

“It’s a program that gets children the care they need,” Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California was quoted as saying.

 

Republicans said that a change that would extend benefits to legal immigrant children, without requiring that they be residents in the U.S. for a period of five years was needed. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that nearly 83 percent of the 4.1 million uninsured children who would gain coverage after the implementation of the program are in families with income below eligibility limits.

SCHIP is designed to help families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for the poor, but nor enough to choose a private insurance.

 

The children’s health program currently covers about 7.4 million children. Under the new legislation, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program will expand to cover as many as 11 million children.