This past December, the House of Representatives passed a bill that will extend the State Children’s Health Program, called Child Health Plus in New York, through March 31, 2009. The bill will provide additional funding to ensure no child currently enrolled with the program will be dropped from coverage.

Congressman Eliot Engel said he is glad to see the bill passed. However he wishes to do more for uninsured children.

“While I am pleased that we are able to halt a pending Medicare reimbursement cut for our doctors, I am saddened that this bill does not accomplish what we could have for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program,” Engel said in a statement. “While we cover the shortfall in funding, this bill will not make headway in covering more uninsured children — and the President is squarely to blame for that.”

The bill will impose a six-month moratorium on the implementation of the Bush Administration’s proposed Medicaid regulations on rehabilitation services and school-based services. If these regulations were to go into effect, nearly $6 billion would be cut from Medicaid services for vulnerable children and people with disabilities, according to Engel.

This fall, Bush threatened to veto a stronger, more inclusive, children’s health bill passed by Congress, saying it helped insure too many middle-class kids.