WASHINGTON, DC - In a continuing effort to ensure that health care for millions of children in America remains protected, U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) today spearheaded a letter to U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) requesting immediate action to address the budget shortfall facing many states including Rhode Island and New Jersey for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Specifically, Reed and Menendez request that the Finance Committee work to include a provision in the upcoming fiscal year 2007 supplemental appropriations bill to address SCHIP funding shortfalls for the remainder of the fiscal year and protect adults also covered by the program. "While I am pleased that last year we were able to negotiate a deal to address SCHIP's immediate funding gaps, this solution was only temporary," said Reed. "We must work quickly protect those states impacted by shortfalls for the remainder of the year, until a more permanent solution to this critical problem can be found. I hope the Senate Finance Committee will take a thoughtful look at all that has done to expand coverage to underserved populations through this program and will work to strengthen and enhance these important efforts to care for uninsured children and related populations." "Providing healthcare for our nation's children and families should be a top priority," said Menendez. "The SCHIP program has been extremely successful, but with the millions in shortfall that New Jersey alone will face, the program cannot work to its full potential. We must act immediately and effectively to fund SCHIP while working towards a long term solution to ensure the well being of our nation's families." In addition to Reed and Menendez, signatories of the letter to the Finance Committee include Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Russell Feingold (D-WI), Richard Durbin (D-IL), John Kerry (D-MA), Barack Obama (D-IL), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), and Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Text of the letter follows: March 2, 2007 Dear Chairman Baucus: We understand your Committee is presently working to craft legislation to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and we thank you for your leadership and commitment to preserving and enhancing this highly successful program. We also greatly appreciate your attention to the fact that a growing number of states are facing budget shortfalls this year, and while we were able to enact a short-term fix to maintain state budgets through May 2007, another remedy is needed. As such, we respectfully request your timely and immediate attention to this matter and would ask your Committee to assemble a package for inclusion in the upcoming FY2007 emergency supplemental to address funding shortfalls that our states, among others, will face during the remainder of this fiscal year. During the final days of the 109th Congress, we successfully included a short-term provision in H.R. 6164, which allowed unspent federal dollars from SCHIP to be redistributed to the fourteen states that face a funding shortfall in 2007. This was not meant to be a permanent solution, but a temporary fix that would allow states to continue providing children's health care coverage. However, this remedy only provided one-fifth of the total funds needed to close the shortfalls. It is estimated that $745 million is needed for the remainder of the fiscal year. While the provision temporarily addressed the most pressing shortfalls, it also included a restriction on the match rate for programs that also cover adults. A growing number of states have sought and received approval from the Department of Health and Human Services for waivers to expand SCHIP programs to adult populations. A differential match is administratively and economically burdensome for states struggling to maintain current programs. There is a growing body of research indicating that expanding access to coverage for parents greatly improves the likelihood that eligible children will also be enrolled. Similarly, by reducing the enrollment of parents, the loss of such coverage will not only cause many of those parents to lose coverage, but is also likely to affect children's coverage. As such, we would urge you to preserve the full SCHIP match for all populations with SCHIP coverage in future shortfall packages. We have achieved so much over the past decade, but there is much more work ahead if we are going to achieve the ultimate goal of expanding coverage to all children in this country. Congress enacted SCHIP in 1997 to fill a void in our nation's health care system at a time when 10 million children were uninsured. While the program has been remarkably successful, there are still millions of children who lack health insurance. We stand ready to work with you on intermediate steps necessary to protect the existing SCHIP programs, while continuing to make progress toward meaningful enhancements that will allow SCHIP to extend coverage to more needy children in this country. Again, we appreciate your long-standing support of this program and your advocacy on behalf of children. While we are currently faced with serious budgetary challenges, we believe that the benefits of SCHIP for families far outweigh the cost of this program. Accordingly, we hope we can count on your assistance in making funding available for this important program through the upcoming emergency supplemental. Sincerely,