Op-Ed: Ensuring Affordable Health Care for South Dakotans
By Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin
August 2, 2007

Accessible and affordable health care is one of the benchmarks by which we can judge the quality of life in South Dakota and across the country. In particular, children’s health care should be a priority - no child in America today should go without coverage.

Recently, the House passed the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007, also known as the CHAMP Act. I am a very proud supporter of this bill, which will enhance health care coverage for our nation’s children, strengthen Medicare, and improve access to health care in rural America.

First, the bill reauthorizes S-CHIP for 6 million children currently covered and provides additional coverage for 5 million more low-income children, covering a total of 11 million children nationwide under this worthy and effective program who would otherwise have no health insurance. In South Dakota, an average of more than 11,000 children per month are covered under S-CHIP, and thousands more could be included if this bill is signed into law.

To be sure, this is a pressing priority for families in South Dakota. And with the current bill set to expire on September 30th of this year, time is of the essence.

If Congress fails to reauthorize S-CHIP, six million children – including thousands in South Dakota – will lose the health care coverage they have right now. Millions of children won’t get the preventive care they need and will likely receive care in the more costly environment of emergency rooms, or not at all.

Nationally, this reauthorization would ensure not only that currently covered children retain that coverage, but that five million additional children gain coverage – these are kids who are eligible to receive S-CHIP, but don’t because of shortfalls in funding the program. In South Dakota, a Kaiser Family Foundation study for 2004-2005 concluded that nearly 18,000 children in our state lacked health care coverage. Likewise, the Congressional Research Service has reported that from 2003 to 2005 the average annual number of uninsured children in South Dakota was 18,000. This bill no doubt will help thousands of those kids in our state that need coverage.

Secondly, the bill is good for rural America specifically, as it helps account for the challenges in delivering adequate health care to the less populated, rural regions of our country. The CHAMP Act includes vital extensions of rural Medicare payment policies affecting South Dakotans’ access to doctors, hospitals, and ambulance services.

As a member of the House Rural Health Care Coalition, I’ve worked hard to preserve these provisions for rural America, including extensions of Medicare incentive payments for physicians working in underserved areas and extensions of payment increases for ambulance services in rural areas. Similar provisions were included in the comprehensive rural health care package that I helped to introduce with the Coalition earlier this year, and I’m pleased to say they are also reflected in this bill.

The CHAMP package also includes vitally necessary funding to support reimbursements for physicians under Medicare. The legislative package prevents a drastic 15% cut over the next two years and instead provides physicians with an increase in each of the next two years. This will help keep physicians in the Medicare system and help provide continued access to quality health care for seniors in South Dakota.

Thanks to its provisions for children’s health care, Medicare, and the accessibility of health care in rural America, the CHAMP Act is good policy for families across South Dakota, and I’m proud to support it on behalf of our state.