jay rockefeller

Health policy experts warn the Democrats’ proposal to terminate the Children’s Health Insurance Program would hike health care costs for low-income families and increase the number of uninsured kids.

The collision between environmental protection and coal extraction is nothing new to the Appalachian states, which are home to some of the largest coal deposits in the world. But in the middle of an unemployment crisis — and with a new administration showing signs of cracking down harshly on the destructive practice of mountaintop removal [...]

Though it’s been little mentioned throughout the health reform debate, there’s a showdown brewing between House and Senate Democrats over the future of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, previously know as SCHIP.
House lawmakers have proposed to do away with the program at the end of 2013, transitioning millions of kids instead to private plans [...]

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who last month salvaged the Children’s Health Insurance Program in the Senate’s health reform bill, just issued a statement condemning the House legislation for proposing to terminate the program.
“As health reform moves forward, we need to make sure children can keep their CHIP coverage and not be forced into untested private [...]

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. [...]

Nine months ago, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill were all celebration as they hailed the renewal of the program. Last week, they called for its demise.

Not even nine months after President Obama, with much fanfare, signed into law a five year, $33 billion reauthorization of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, House Democrats have proposed to dismantle it.
Under the $894 billion health reform legislation that House leaders unveiled last week, CHIP would cease to exist at the end of 2013, [...]

He’s decidedly anti-trigger. And he’s opposed to health care co-ops. But Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s health subpanel, likes what he sees in the Democrats’ plan to bring an opt-out public option to the Senate floor. In a just-released statement, he says he’s “gratified” that Senate Majority Leader Harry [...]

Not the horse.
Here’s the statement from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s health subpanel, reacting to reports that the White House is leaning toward a trigger in lieu of a strong public option in the Democrats’ health reform legislation:

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), interviewed today in The Washington Post, points to the central reason that a health reform bill that hits the floor with a public option already included stands a better chance of ultimately keeping that provision: Namely, the burden of getting 60 votes would shift from supporters trying to add it to [...]