Update: On September 24, the Senate Finance Committee released
the text of the compromise legislation, which went on to pass both houses of Congress that week. The CBO determined that the bill would expand coverage to 5.8 million children, 3.8 million of whom are uninsured and 2 million of whom have or have access to private health insurance. That’s a crowd-out rate of 34 percent. About 79 percent of the new enrollees qualify under the existing eligibility guidelines, the CBO report said.

Here’s what would happen to New York’s request to increase its eligibility cap to 400 percent of the poverty level: The new legislation would rescind the Aug. 17 letter from HHS that required states to meet certain requirements before they could raise eligibility above 250 percent of the poverty level. Instead, HHS would issue new requirements for states seeking to increase their caps above 300 percent. After Oct. 1, 2010, states failing to meet those requirements wouldn’t get federal funds for children above that 300 percent mark (see Sec. 116 of the bill).

Also, states that meet the requirements and extend eligibility above 300 percent of the poverty level would get a reduced federal matching rate for children in families above that 300 percent threshold. States that already have a higher cap (only New Jersey) and those that were about to put one in place (only New York) would be exempt from that federal match restriction. So, New York could increase its income eligibility cap to $82,600 for a family of four for at least two years, until late 2010, as long as the state’s plan is approved by HHS. After that, to continue getting funds for children above the 300 percent level, the state would have to meet the federal government’s new guidelines. The president has a point in that the bill allows New York to increase its eligibility cap beyond what his administration was willing to permit. But with the eligibility restrictions and incentives the new legislation puts in place, it’s misleading for the president to say the bill is “turning [the program] into one that covers children in households with incomes of up to $83,000 a year.”

Here the parts in bold show that FactCheck is backing off its original slam, but the part in italics just doesn’t follow. In one sentence they admit that New York could expand coverage to families making $82,600, while in the next they claim that the Pres. is being “misleading” by saying the program covers children in households with incomes up to $83,000.

You be the judge, are they being fair here?

He [Pres. Bush] said it “would result” in covering children in families with incomes up to $83,000 per year, which isn’t true. The Urban Institute estimated that 70 percent of children who would gain coverage are in families earning half that amount, and the bill contains no requirement for setting income eligibility caps any higher than what’s in the current law. (The compromise bill that was released a few days after Bush’s press conference does rescind an administration effort to block New York state from increasing its eligibility cap to that level.)

The part in italics was apparently added later, and it’s really a half-truth. The rules were put in place, the States balked (Spitzer threatened suit) and then the SCHIP expansion was vetoed. When Bush raled against “covering children in families with incomes up to $83,000 per year” it was true that the House Bill proposed just such a thing at the bidding of the various States who had been denied under the CMS rules.