Republican Attacks the Proposed Repeal of CHIP

By calling for the end of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, House Democratic leaders have put themselves in the uncomfortable position of claiming that the program they fought so hard to preserve and expand in recent years is no longer worth keeping around. At least one Republican lawmaker is calling them out on it.

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told The Charleston Gazette yesterday that the proposed CHIP repeal “is yet another example of pieces of this bill that just don’t add up.”

Capito has supported the CHIP program since she was in the state Legislature, she said. “The fact that [the health reform bill] takes aim at a popular program that we know is effective only further demonstrates that this bill isn’t ready for prime time.”

In the Senate, a similar proposal to eliminate CHIP was thwarted by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), whose amendment preserving CHIP passed the Senate Finance Committee last month. Rockefeller’s office declined to comment this week for our CHIP story, but the senator himself wasn’t so restrained, telling the Gazette that, for the kids in CHIP, lawmakers “should do all we can to shield them from harm. Period.”