States press Congress for S-CHIP fix

Stateline.org published story on the Peach Care problem...

Georgia predicts that 260,000 of its children will lose health insurance in early March, when the PeachCare program that covers them runs out of money. Congress tried last month to keep such programs going, but as many as 14 states could find themselves short of cash by October if the states don’t receive additional funding for children’s health coverage.

Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island are projected to run out of federal money for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by May, and they want Congress to fix the problem quickly. But states also want a long-term solution so they won’t have to ask Congress to retool S-CHIP’s funding formulas every year.

Estimates by the Congressional Research Serviceshow that Georgia would only get $1.2 million in extra money from the deal – barely enough to keep PeachCare running for a single day. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that oversees Medicaid, are making the final calculations. Still, Georgia officials aren’t optimistic.

“I am going forward with what I have, which is nothing,” said Dr. Rhonda Medows, who oversees PeachCare as the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health.

She said the only way Georgia could keep PeachCare running is if it put off paying doctors, hospitals and other providers until it got federal money. But Medows said providers “would never come back” if they weren’t paid, which would also harm the state’s Medicaid and state employee health insurance programs.