President Obama Signs the SCHIP Bill!

According to CNN.com, President Barack Obama signed the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill into law this afternoon, expanding coverage to 4.1 million more kids and extending the program through 2013.The House voted 290-135 earlier today to pass the bill and send it to the president.


This was the second time the chamber passed an SCHIP bill this month. But the Senate passed a slightly different version last week, and House leaders decided to ratify the Senate bill rather than delay the legislation further by sending it to a conference committee.


Notably absent from the final bill is a provision that would have blocked Medicare and Medicaid funds to new or expanded physician-owned hospitals. That language was in the initial House version, but the Senate omitted the restriction in its bill.

Additionally, the legislation makes children of legal immigrants eligible for SCHIP as soon as their parents arrive in the U.S., instead of having to wait five years as was previously required. Republican lawmakers tried but failed to maintain the five-year exclusion.

The expanded SCHIP will now cover an estimated total of 11 million children in working-poor families who don't quality for Medicaid.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the expanded coverage will add $32.8 billion to the cost of SCHIP from 2009 to 2013. The extra cost is to be covered by a 68-cent-per-pack increase in the cigarette tax.House majority leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) lauded the bill's passage.