The Bush administration, engaged in a battle with Congress over whether a popular children’s health insurance program should be expanded, has
announced new policies that will make it harder for states to insure all but the lowest-income children.
New administrative hurdles, which state health officials were told about late last week, are aimed at preventing parents with private insurance for their children from availing of the government-subsidized State Children’s Health Insurance Program. But Democrats and children’s advocates said that the announcement will jeopardize coverage for children whose parents work at jobs that do not provide employer-paid insurance.
