Los Angeles Times Urges Bush Administration to Move on California’s CHIP Expansion Request

By failing to even "formally respond" to the state's waiver request to extend its CHIP program, Healthy Families, to low-income parents, the Bush administration has "left out" California in its plan to reduce the number of uninsured, a Los Angeles Times editorial states. The state budget, signed by Gov. Gray Davis (D) two weeks ago, earmarks $820 million for expanding Healthy Families; all "that is needed" now is for President Bush to "give the OK." However, according to the editorial, Davis officials have said that Dennis Smith, who oversees CHIP at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (formerly HCFA) has "not even explained why the state's request is being delayed." Meanwhile, the editorial says, Bush last weekend announced a plan to give states more flexibility in their Medicaid and CHIP programs to lower the number of uninsured, and touted the administration's approval of waiver requests from New York and New Jersey, which both have Republican governors. But in "holding up" New York's plan as a "national model," Bush "ground salt into California's wounds," as its waiver request is "similar in all the essentials." Stating that California's "health care woes," which include the fourth-highest rate of uninsured in the United States and an emergency care crisis, "affect Republicans [and] Democrats alike," the editorial concludes: "Expanding Healthy Families is at least a partial solution to the crisis. President Bush could have no reason beyond partisan politics to block California's compassionate and well-crafted plan" (Los Angeles Times, 8/8). For further information on state health policy in California, visit State Health Facts Online.