Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – A bill U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman helped write to ensure that more New Mexicans could have access to health care cleared its first hurdle today.

The Senate Finance Committee today approved legislation that reauthorizes the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) -- the state/federal health care initiative crated in 1997 that covers millions of children and others who do not qualify for Medicaid but whose families cannot afford health insurance. 

Bingaman, as a member of Finance Committee, worked extensively on the bill and had several provisions included in the measure to specifically address New Mexico's needs.  The bill, now ready for full Senate debate, sets aside $32.3 billion over the next four and a half years to ensure that 13 million American children will either maintain health care coverage or receive it for the first time. 

As a result of this legislation, New Mexico would stand to receive $196 million for SCHIP this year, which represents a 277 percent increase over the state current SCHIP allotment -- the fourth largest percentage increase of any state.  With this funding, tens-of-thousands of additional New Mexico children -- and adults -- would have access to health care for the first time. 

"New Mexico has one of the highest uninsured rates in the country.  One of my main goals in Congress has been to find ways to address that very serious problem," Bingaman said.  "This legislation would give thousands of New Mexicans access to health care for the first time.  This is a very good bill for our state"

At Bingaman's urging, the measure corrects an inequity in the law that has prevented New Mexico from covering a certain category of low-income New Mexico children, and required the state to return more than $180 million to the federal government since 1998.  Bingaman was able to ensure that category of children could be covered. 

He was also able to secure significant improvements in a federal law that made it very difficult for New Mexicans to prove that they were American citizens and, therefore, eligible for SCHIP.  Thousands of U.S. citizen children in New Mexico and throughout the Country have inappropriately lost coverage because of this requirement. The legislation now creates a system by which states can verify Social Security numbers to confirm citizenship.  It also allows official tribal documents to be used to be used as proof. 

"Tens of thousands of Americans were being denied access to the health care to which they are entitled because it was too hard for them to prove they are citizens.  That is totally unfair and we need to fix it right away," Bingaman said. 

The bill also creates an initiative that Bingaman pushed for many years, which would allow states to automatically enroll children in SCHIP if they have already been deemed eligible for another public program, such as the National School Lunch Program or the Food Stamp Program, with comparable income guidelines.

"One way to reduce the number of uninsured Americans is to make it easier to get rid of needless administrative hurdles.  This provision would help states use technology to cut through the bureaucracy that all too often prevents Americans from receiving health benefits," Bingaman said. 

The bill contains a long-time championed Bingaman provision to mandate dental coverage for children receiving SCHIP benefits as well as a "wrap" provisions he co-sponsored during the mark-up to allow children with private coverage who don't receive dental benefits to receive such benefits through SCHIP.  Currently, SCHIP does not cover dental care.

"Dental services are an essential part of comprehensive health care for young people," Bingaman said. "Children suffer needlessly in pain and, in some cases, have even died from lack of access to dental care.  It's time for Congress to ensure that children can get all the care they need."

The bill also does the following:

• Ensures that New Mexico can continue to provide coverage through SCHIP to parents of enrolled children, and other low-income adults.
• Gives incentive bonus payments to do outreach and enrollment of young people into Medicaid, and significantly increases outreach to Native American communities.
• Gives community health workers and promatoras access to funding for outreach and enrollment in Medicaid and SCHIP
• Ensures that children enrolled in SCHIP have access to robust mental health benefits.