Corzine fighting cuts in health aid for poor

from North Jersey Com

By HERB JACKSON

New Jersey's generous health insurance subsidies for low- and moderate-income families put Governor Corzine on the defensive Sunday at a gathering of the nation's governors in Washington.

Tight federal funding has some states and the Bush administration questioning whether more generous states should get the same amount of federal support as those that are more stringent.

But advocates for universal health care such as Corzine see the joint state-federal subsidy program as a vehicle to cover more of the uninsured, and they want the states to have maximum flexibility in setting the rules.

"The cost of living is significantly different in Bergen County than other states around the country," Corzine told reporters at the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association. "It's clear 200 percent of the poverty level in Mississippi is different than what 200 percent of the poverty level will buy you in New Jersey."

Corzine's comments came after he and the Republican governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue, led a news conference at which a broad bipartisan coalition of governors called on Congress to provide $765 million in additional funding this year for the insurance subsidy program, known in Washington as S-Chip and in New Jersey as FamilyCare or KidCare.

Perdue said he faces the prospect of dropping children from the program next month unless he receives more funding. Corzine has said as many as 30,000 children in New Jersey could be dropped by May if he does not receive another $47 million this year.

But unanimity among the states about needing more short-term funding dissolved when it came to the long-term question of whether to insure children from families that make more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level -- about $26,000 for a family of three -- and whether to insure adults.

New Jersey covers children from families making up to 350 percent of the poverty level -- about $60,000 for a family of three. It also covers parents from families making up to $20,000. Corzine said covering parents increases the likelihood that children would be enrolled. He also said that not providing coverage would lead to more people seeking care at emergency rooms, where treatment is more expensive and partly subsidized by taxpayers and people with private health insurance.

"It's a pay me now or pay me later situation," he said. He criticized President Bush for seeking to trim the program to justify making tax cuts permanent.

Congress must renew the insurance subsidy program this year, and Bush's five-year budget plan delivered last month called for focusing funds solely on children from families making 200 percent of the poverty level or less. States that already meet those standards believe such a focus would mean more money for them.

"Don't get the idea this is about expansion," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said at the news conference calling for the supplemental funding this year. "Those that do the basic program do not have enough money to do it."

But Corzine said Congress should give states the flexibility to serve the needs they see in their populations. He argued that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan for universal health care relies heavily on S-Chip, and that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is considering raising his state's eligibility limit to 400 percent of the poverty limit.

Corzine will get a chance to press the issue today, when he chairs a governors association committee at which the Bush administration's top health official, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, is one of the main guests.