Washington (dbTechno) – The Senate has agreed with the House and has approved an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), supplying millions of low-income children with health insurance.
The Senate voted 66-32 in favor of the expansion of the childrens’ health insurance program.
The idea is to help families who earn too much money to fall under Medicaid support, but too little for private health insurance.
As of right now, the SCHIP covers over 6 million kids in terms of providing them with health insurance.
The expansion of the program is going to provide health insurance to another 5 million.
In total, the SCHIP will likely now cover over 11 million kids in the U.S.
The House approved the legislation back on January 14th.
It is now believed that early next week, the legislation will be signed by President Barack Obama.
The expansion of the program will be paid for by raising the cigarette tax.
The cigarette tax is expected to be increased from 39 cents per pack up to $1.
This is the same bill which was vetoed twice by former President George W. Bush.
This SCHIP bill is not the same bill that was presented to President Bush in 2008, there are more program expansions and levels of funding added.
The SCHIP program relies heavily on Cigarette Consumption of Americans.
The Federal Government needs 22 million more smokers to fund the expanded program.
Buy a Pack of Cigarettes today – you don’t have to smoke them, you can give them away or throw them out.
SCHIP needs everyone’s support
It’s nice to have a government that cares more for kids than for big tobacco.
Let’s see the actual legislation. Just because its called Children’s Healthcare doesn’t mean that is all that’s in the bill. The last time this attempted to pass it was turned down due to the millions set aside for the illegal parents of the children. In the current form, are children the only ones that are being covered? What else is in that bill????
Next time you see a smoker…. make sure you say THANK YOU! Instead of giving him/her a dirty look. The hypocrisy in the US never ceases to amaze me.
i smoke, and this is lame.
a sin tax is absurd. if you want welfare, don’t tax us for smoking. its the poor kids’ fault for failing.
Families making $65,000 can apply for schip. This isn’t low income and is the reason why bush vetoed it.
The biblical word is GREED. All you people who are so greedy that you can’t help kids get medical help, are only showing the rest of the world what intensely selfish people you are. Not only the world, but God is watching you too……but you probably don’t care about that either.