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Banned
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
No it does not.
Technically there is no maximum. Practically the maximum is controlled by the President. Currently NJ has approval for 350%. NJ is an exception, but 350% of poverty is real. I am not sure what Bush needs to apologize for.
Again, this program is simply to complicated and needs to be re-worked.
P.S. - Isn't poverty levels in Hawaii and Alaska higher than the rest of the nation? What are their rates for qualification? Where does their income levels fall?
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ace....Bush is on record, yesterday, lying about the income provisions of the bil that was actually passed....and, as you said....he himself controls the approval proxess for states asking for higher income limits wothout federal reimbursment penalties....if Bush or his HEW department reject an appeal for higher income eligibility, and a state approves aid to wealthier families, Bush has the power to limit federal reimbursment....so he deliberately distorted the reason for his veto and the terms of the actual bill passed by congress.
The reason you can say that Bush says what he means, is because you don't "grok" what he says, vs. reality......
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/wa...dba&ei=5087%0A
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: October 17, 2007
Mr. Bush said Monday that the bill would expand eligibility for the program up to $83,000.
But Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and an architect of the bill, said Tuesday that the president’s argument was specious. “About 92 percent of the kids will be under 200 percent of the poverty level,” Mr. Hatch said at a news conference with supporters of the bill, including the singer Paul Simon.
<h3>Another Republican author of the bill, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, said the White House claims were “flatly incorrect.”</h3>
States establish income limits for the child health program. A recent survey by the Congressional Research Service found that 32 states had set limits at twice the poverty level or less, while 17 states had limits from 220 percent to 300 percent of the poverty level. Only one state, New Jersey, has a higher limit. It offers coverage to children with family incomes up to 350 percent of the poverty level, or $72,275 for a family of four.
In New York, which covers children up to 250 percent of the poverty level, the Legislature this year passed a bill that would have raised the limit to 400 percent of the poverty level, or $82,600 for a family of four. The Bush administration rejected the proposal, saying it would have allowed the substitution of public coverage for private insurance.
States that cover middle-income children often charge premiums and co-payments on a sliding scale, so the coverage is not free.
While the bill passed by Congress would not prohibit states from setting the income limit at $82,600, it would set stringent new standards for such coverage.
In general, after Oct. 1, 2010, a state could not receive any federal money to cover children above 300 percent of the poverty level unless a vast majority of its low-income children — those at or below 200 percent of the poverty level — were already covered. To meet this test, a state would have to show that the proportion of its low-income children with insurance was at least equal to the average for the 10 states with the highest rates of coverage of low-income children.
Moreover, if a state was allowed to cover children over 300 percent of the poverty level, the federal payment for those children would, in most cases, be reduced. New Jersey and New York would be exempt from the cuts if they met the bill’s other requirements.
Citing that provision, the White House said Oct. 6 that the bill included a “grandfather clause” allowing higher payment rates for children above 300 percent of the poverty level in New Jersey and New York.
Jocelyn A. Guyer, a researcher at the Health Policy Institute of Georgetown University, said: “This is a wildly contentious political issue, but it’s largely a theoretical question. More than 99 percent of children in the program are below three times the poverty level, and New York is the only state that has expressed any interest in going to four times the poverty level.”
Suzanne Esterman, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Human Services, said that 3,000 of the 124,000 children in the state program — about 2.4 percent — had family incomes exceeding three times the poverty level....
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Last edited by host; 10-18-2007 at 11:16 AM..
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