Children's Health Insurance

The Senate committee approved a five-year $35 billion expansion of a children's health insurance program that would be financed through higher tobacco taxes. The program subsidizes insurance for children and some adults with incomes too high for Medicaid but not high enough to afford private insurance. The additional spending approved by the committee would bring total SCIP funding to $60 billion over five years which is double what the administration has proposed. The president has threatened a presidential veto on this.