The Bush administration improperly issued a policy directive last year that restricts states’ abilities to expand their SCHIP programs, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said May 15 during a House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing. The Aug. 17, 2007, policy directive requires states to enroll 95 percent of children in families with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) before expanding coverage to children in families with incomes greater than 250 percent of the FPL. During the hearing, Morton Rosenberg, a legal specialist for CRS, and Dayna Shah, managing associate general counsel for GAO, said the directive amounted to a regulation and should have been vetted in Congress using the same process as other administrative rules.
States have argued that meeting the enrollment requirement is impossible, and several states have filed lawsuits against the federal government to block the directive. The Bush administration says the directive is aimed at preventing families from dropping private health coverage to enroll in SCHIP. Read the GAO report.
