WLBT 3 - Jackson, MS: Veto Leaves Health Coverage in Limbo

Veto Leaves Health Coverage in Limbo

by Jon Kalahar
jkalahar@wlbt.net

President Bush's veto of a children's health insurance plan could put thousands of Mississippi children at risk of losing health coverage. Congress would need a two thirds vote to override the veto. But Governor Haley Barbour and Mississippi's congressional delegation believe the plan to expand the program would short-change the state.

Medicaid provided Sheron Greenfield's children with health coverage until she found work. Now she doesn't qualify and her new job doesn't provide health insurance. Greenfield is now looking to the state children's health insurance plan, or S-chip.

"If it boiled down to it, I could take my children to the emergency room and maybe I could get a prescription filled," said Greenfield.

Congress has passed a plan to increase the number of children covered by S-chip. George Bush says that plan is too expensive, so he vetoed it. Fifteen members in the House of Representatives will need to change their votes to override that veto.

"Maybe take a week, just one week and live in some of the situations that a lot of people, everyday average people live in," said Greenfield.

Oleta Fitzgerald of the Children's Defense Fund says if the plan is re authorized, it will move Mississippi one step closer to getting all uninsured children covered.

"We won't cover the full one hundred thousand children who are out there currently, but we will get there, we'll cover about three fourths of the children," said Fitzgerald.  

Today, S-chip covers 60 thousand children in Mississippi. But in other states, S-chip recipients are allowed to make as much as 400% above poverty level and still qualify; in Mississippi it's 200% above poverty. Governor Haley Barbour says that's unfair.

"It ought to be fixed; this reform should have come years ago. This started during the Clinton administration and certain states like us and Georgia were short-changed, and we've got to do something about it now," said Barbour.

Now Congress has until November to reauthorize the program, or S-chip recipients will go without health coverage. But Democrats in Washington believe they have the votes to override the president's veto. They have set October 17th as the date to vote to go ahead without the president.