House takes up child health veto

North Carolina's insurance coverage for poor children has operated as President Bush wants it to.

The children's health insurance program, N.C. Health Choice, covers youngsters in low-income homes. It does not cover adults. Like all states, North Carolina prohibits legal and illegal immigrants from receiving coverage.

But North Carolina's program is threatened by the fight in Washington, where opponents have cast the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which funds Health Choice, as a move toward socialized medicine, offering government-subsidized health care to the middle class. On those grounds, President Bush vetoed a bill that could have expanded coverage to children in better-off families.

As the U.S. House of Representatives planned an attempt to override the veto Thursday, supporters of the measure were making a final push to change the minds of GOP lawmakers who back the president's position. Attack ads were airing, and on Tuesday night supporters scheduled 275 vigils across the country.

Bush's veto has left North Carolina leaders wondering how to continue a program they say has been a success for 113,000 children and needs more money for new families moving into the state. As many as 25 percent of North Carolina children in the program could have their benefits scaled back if the override attempt fails, the Easley administration says.

No aid for N.C. middle class, but tax would hurt:

A comparison of what opponents are saying about the bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program on the national level -- which President Bush vetoed --with how North Carolina's Health Choice program operates:

SOME SAY: The bill would cover kids in families with incomes of $83,000.

REALITY: No states allow incomes this high. The bill would have grandfathered in the state of New York, which passed legislation to cover families of four with income of about $83,000. However, the federal government denied New York's expansion. The bill includes new provisions that would give more federal funding to states that target kids in families with incomes no higher than about $62,000 for a family of four. States that go above that would not get as much. About 90 percent of children covered now are in families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level -- $41,300 for a family of four --according to the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University. North Carolina caps eligibility at that level.

SOME SAY: It would allow illegal immigrants to get health insurance.

REALITY: Just like current law, the expansion bill expressly prohibits extending health insurance to both legal and illegal immigrants. Starting this year, North Carolina and other states began verifying citizenship of applicants by checking individuals' Social Security numbers against the federal Social Security Administration database. Since some illegal immigrants obtain false Social Security numbers or use numbers that do not belong to them, in theory some illegal immigrants could slip through the system. But a recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that most children denied benefits through this verification system are citizens who legitimately qualify for coverage.

SOME SAY: It covers adults, not just children.

REALITY: The bill creates new options to cover pregnant women, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. It would also allow 11 states that currently cover adults to continue that coverage for two years. It would prohibit additional states from covering adults. North Carolina does not cover any adults through Health Choice.