Senator Sherrod Brown

WASHINGTON – United States Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today joined with fellow Senate Democrats Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Max Baucus (D-MT), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Bob Casey (D-PA) to advocate increased funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) in the federal budget. The bipartisan S-CHIP program, which passed Congress in 1997, provides health coverage to low income uninsured children. The administration’s budget proposes $10 billion less than is needed to continue covering the children already enrolled in S-CHIP and would give Ohio less money to cover its neediest children.

“It is morally reprehensible to have a budget that does not protect our children,” Brown said. “Thousands of uninsured children in Ohio are not covered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It is essential that our final budget not only cover those kids already in the program, but also expand coverage for all eligible children.”

Today, Brown called on the Senate to provide up to $50 billion for the reauthorization of S-CHIP. The additional funds will not only maintain coverage for the millions of children already enrolled in the program, but will also expand health care coverage to an additional six million uninsured children nationwide who are eligible for S-CHIP but not yet enrolled.

Ten years ago, more than one in five of the nation’s children had no health insurance. S-CHIP covered 6.1 million children by 2005. Last year, Ohio received $144 million in S-CHIP block grant funding that helped cover nearly 219,000 children.

“In 1997 Republicans and Democrats united to establish the Children’s Health Insurance program. In 2007, we should work together again to protect the progress we’ve made and reach the children who still lack health insurance. This budget provides the blueprint, and I hope once we adopt it our Republican colleagues will join us in building on our earlier work,” Brown said.