Ensign opposes bill expanding health services for chidren

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Ensign spoke out Wednesday against a bill that would expand the government program for child health insurance.

Ensign, R-Nev., proposed an amendment to scale back the bill after he charged that renewing and broadening the State Children's Health Insurance Program would greatly increase federal spending.

He also argued it would put the government deeper into health insurance, drawing families away from private plans. He said Congress should work instead to make private insurance more affordable.

The bill being debated in the Senate this week contained "some of the worst budget gimmicks I've seen around here," Ensign said.

Ensign's amendment was defeated as the Senate continued to debate the legislation that seeks to enroll more low-income children and expand eligibility to more families.

The number of participants would grow from 6.6 million enrollees to a projected 10 million enrollees at a cost that would grow from $5 billion annually to $12 billion.

A bill that would grow the federal program even more was passed Wednesday in the House.

Among supporters of expanding federal health insurance for children is Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Reid said Wednesday the program "has been a smashing success by any measure, but for too many working people, the cost of quality health care is still prohibitive."

"There can be no more worthy cause than to get kids to go see a doctor when they are sick," Reid said. "Study after study has shown that children in this program are healthier."

Ensign's amendment targeted a tax increase for tobacco products that would pay for expanding the child health program. The federal tax on a pack of cigarettes would be boosted by 61 cents, to $1 a pack.

The Nevadan argued that by making cigarettes more expensive, more people would give up smoking.

Bottom line, he said, the tax increase will bring in far less revenue than projected, and the government will need to pay the difference that he estimated at between $110 billion and $112 billion.

Ensign's amendment sought to redirect the tobacco taxes to fund disease prevention and treatment at the National Institutes of Health.

"It is a better use of the taxpayer dollars to use that money to fund research instead of taking people from the private health market and into a government-funded health market," he said.

Ensign's amendment was killed, 26-58, after Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., called it "a thinly veiled attempt to steal the funding from the kids' program."

Baucus said the tobacco tax increase was needed not just to expand coverage but to maintain current coverage because of medical inflation.