Dear Mr. Secretary:
Today we are sending a letter to the President regarding the approval of certain waiversfor adults in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). As part of thereauthorization of the SCHIP, we are committed to returning this program to its focus on lowincome children. We are very concerned that the Department of Health and Human Services hasapproved and extended state waivers to cover adults. While we recognize that most of thewaivers were approved before your tenure as secretary, simply put, adults should not have beenadded to a program for low-income children.
As you know, a number of these very states cover more adults through their SCHIPprogram than they do children. Yet, several of these states still have very high rates of uninsuredlow income children. Further, as these states covered adults in the SCHIP program, they ranshort of funds. When this occurred, these states expected Congress to bail them out of fundingshortfalls caused by funding that should not have been approved by HHS from the beginning.The fact that the Department has approved these waivers in the past and has continued toextend them has complicated the reauthorization of the SCHIP program. Consequently, as partof reauthorization, Congress must address the adult populations added by the waivers.
As Republicans, we are supportive of efforts to provide health insurance coverage toeligible low income children. We believe it is time to do all we can to return SCHIP to itsoriginal focus of covering low income children. Therefore, we respectfully request that you takesteps to ensure that the Department refrains from granting or extending waivers for adultcoverage under SCHIP.
We appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Charles E. GrassleyUnited States SenatorRanking Member of the Committee on FinanceOrrin G. HatchUnited States SenatorRanking Member of the Finance Subcommittee on Health CarePat RobertsUnited States SenatorMember of the Committee on Finance
