Maryland will join seven states in a lawsuit that aims to stop the Bush administration from stripping health insurance nationwide from hundreds of thousands of children, Gov. Martin O?Malley said Monday.
O?Malley also joined legislators and members of the congressional delegation requesting President Bush not to veto an expansion of the State Children?s Health Insurance Program passed by overwhelming majorities. Bush has threatened to do so because of its $35 billion cost and its extension to some families who are not in need.
The states? lawsuit will allege that new federal rules paring Medicaid rolls violate the law, because they were implemented with no public comment. The regulations would knock 800,000 children off the Medicaid rolls for health insurance, according to U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, of southern Maryland.
In Maryland, 4,000 families would lose their coverage, he said.
Under the expansion of SCHIP passed by the House and Senate, 42,000 additional Maryland children could be added to the program, which already serves 100,000, according to the Maryland House speaker?s office.
Hoyer said Bush?s possible veto would violate the president?s 2004 campaign promise to expand the program. “This is what you promised to do if re-elected, Mr. President,” Hoyer said. “This bill is paid for” with new taxes.
“Maryland has probably a greater risk in this than other states,” said state House Speaker Michael Busch, who helped win passage of the state?s expansion of children?s health insurance a decade ago.
The poster boy for the rally was 12-year-old Graeme Frost, who gave the Democrats? response to Bush?s national radio address Saturday. The Baltimore boy and his family were in a serious car crash three years ago that put Graeme in the hospital for 5 1/2 months, but he said he and his sister were fortunate to be covered by SCHIP.
On Monday, Graeme read a letter to Bush, requesting a meeting to explain his situation. He wrote a similar letter to Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-6th, the only Maryland member of Congress to vote against reauthorizing the children?s health insurance program.
Responding to Graeme?s letter, Bartlett, whose district includes parts of Harford, Baltimore and Carroll counties, told The Examiner: “I?m proud that I voted to create the SCHIP program in 1997 that helped Graeme and his sister in 2004. I want to help the working poor, but Democrats are demanding that SCHIP be expanded to have government-controlled, taxpayer-paid health care for millions of children who already have private health coverage.”
