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DEL.ICIO.USPeachCare lives on - for now
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Congressional leaders on Tuesday unveiled a new plan that would keep Georgia’s PeachCare, a program that provides health insurance to poor children, running into 2009, a breakthrough after nearly a year of political haggling.
Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), two leading voices in the SCHIP debate, put the 11th hour proposal together and attached provisions making Republican-sought changes in Medicare in hopes of drawing more GOP votes in the House.
Times for House and Senate votes were still unknown late Tuesday. Officials involved i the process expect the measure to pass because neither Republicans nor Democrats want to enter the 2008 congressional campaigns having failed to act on the popular program.
The latest plan would extend funding for PeachCare and other programs like it around the country through March 2009 - a timeline first proposed by Rep. Nathan Deal, a Duluth Republican who took a leading role in previous negotiations on SCHIP.
The Baucus-Grassley measure would keep PeachCare funding at its current levels. But it would add additional funds to prevent Georgia and about 20 other states from running out of money early - a problem that this year forced Georgia lawmakers to freeze and cap enrollment for the state’s eligible children.
Georgia’s Department of Community Health Commissioner Rhonda Medows called the measure a “responsible approach” that would “provide the longer commitment and assurances needed by parents, providers and states.”
Congress failed twice this year to renew SCHIP for another five years after President Bush vetoed very similar Democratic proposals that would have expanded the program by $35 billion through 2012. Unable to override Bush’s vetoes, lawmakers gave up on an expansion and refocused their efforts on extending current SCHIP funding.
“The (Baucus-Grassley) proposal provides continuing health care coverage to those already enrolled while the national debate about expansions, etc., continues,” Medows said.
“With appropriate funding,” she said, “children already enrolled and eligible for PeachCare can continue without interruption of their health care.”
Since Oct. 1, PeachCare has been operating under month-long - and, in the latest case, weeklong - extensions of its current funding, leaving Georgia officials worried about running out of money in early 2008.
Deal, who took a leading role in private, convoluted negotiations over SCHIP’s expansion, described the experience as “the most unusual process I’ve seen in my life.” He declared himself pleased with the proposal announced Tuesday.
“I’m just glad they’re going to put us out of our misery,” he said.
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