Press Release

	FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 25, 2007	Contact: Jennifer Kohl 202.225.4289 or 202.225.4025 Trudy Perkins 410.685.9199 or 202.225.4641

	Cummings Joins Colleagues in Protecting 10 Million Children…Again Encourages President to stop political maneuvering and sign the new CHIP bill.

	Washington, DC—Today, Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) joined a majority of his colleagues in the House of Representatives to pass H.R. 3963, a revised version of the bipartisan re-authorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that was vetoed by President Bush earlier this month. “The President blatantly misled the American people when he vetoed the original CHIP bill by falsely claiming that it would cover illegal immigrants, adults, and high-income children,” Congressman Cummings said. “Now we are sending him a new bill with even more provisions to address his alleged concerns, and I encourage him to stand with the majority of Congress by signing this bill. Ten million of our neediest children are depending on him.” The new version of the bill still provides coverage to 10 million children and still contains critical improvements to the existing program, including guaranteed dental benefits authored by Congressman Cummings in response to the death of Deamonte Driver, a 12-year-old Maryland boy who died when a tooth infection spread to his brain. However, it also contains new provisions to address the four main concerns raised by the President and several Republican members of Congress. It passed by a vote of 265-142. The additional provisions included in the bill include: Further clarifying that CHIP is targeted on enrolling low-income children first. While the vetoed bill provided states with financial incentives for covering low-income children and financial disincentives for covering children beyond 300% of the poverty level, new provisions were added capping enrollment at 300% of poverty and limiting states’ eligibility for bonus payments to covering additional Medicaid children. Further clarifying that CHIP does not cover illegal immigrants. While the vetoed bill established a requirement that states establish beneficiaries’ citizenship to enroll and allowed states to verify citizenship through the Social Security Administration (SSA), a new provision was added requiring states to obtain further documentation of citizenship if SSA cannot confirm it. Further clarifying that CHIP is focused on phasing out adults. While the vetoed bill phased out coverage of adults over two years, a new provision was added speeding up this process to occur over one year instead of two. Further clarifying that CHIP minimizes crowd-out from private insurance plans. While the original bill created new options for states to develop and expand premium assistance programs that would keep children in their parents’ employer-sponsored plan, the new bill contains a provision adding premium assistance programs to the list of things a state can do to receive bonuses. It will also now require all states to develop plans and implement recommended best practices for minimizing crowd-out. “Today, my colleagues were offered the opportunity to put the health of ten million children over political maneuvering, and the overwhelmingly voted to protect our children,” Congressman Cummings said. “I now encourage President Bush to take the same road.” ###

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