Talk:State Children's Health Insurance Program

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    [edit] External links removed

    Deleted link to Piper report because the link is not specific to the subject and also relates to this issue: "Adding links to one's own page is strongly discouraged." from Wikipedia:External_links#What_should_not_be_linked_to

    Also deleted link to State Medicaid Directors b/c that site only links to other SCHIP info and is therefore not a primary information link.

    [edit] Improper links

    I keep removing improper links but an anonymous IP keeps putting them back in. Instead of edit warring, let me illustrate why they are improper: http://www.rwjf.org/: This is an irrelevant link about general health care. It has nothing to do with SCHIP. It doesn't belong here. http://covertheuninsured.org/factsheets/schip.pdf: this link is by an organization urging political action. Furthermore, the so-called "fact sheet" says this, which clearly shows its bias: "Congress needs to reauthorize SCHIP in 2007 to continue to cover kids currently enrolled in the program and to accelerate the rate of progress in covering more uninsured kids—until all kids have the coverage they need to stay healthy."

    Both those links are improper for a factual encyclopedia. Perhaps the anonymous user would care to defend why he keeps putting them back in? MKil 18:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)MKil

    Sure, I do not mind if you revert, I am requesting that you put something back, something similar. Remember, people may need help, so even if they are political, let's say I am a democract, but if I go on a republican site and they can help my kid, I really do not care if they are black, white, democrats or republicans, so, simply find a better link a link you may think it's not partisan and then we can replace it until you do that, the links stay.

    So even if they are partisan in nature, mkil, they help, that's the goal. One link, the one which talks about schip is based on the fact, you can not say it's biased, remembered congress approved the program in 1997.

    I agree the link has some facts mixed in with it. However, it also urges political action. It doesn't provide any new information on the program, so there really is no reason for it. Why does it need to be replaced with any link? There is no need for a certain number of links, you know. MKil 18:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)MKil
    Mkil, link stays, also it says there it's connected to us. government.
    It's not connected to the government. It's by a group called "Cover the Uninsured." That is a partisan advocacy group. MKil 18:29, 18 July 2007 (UTC)MKil
    Again, read what I wrote. Yes it is, there is a gov link on it.
    Yes, they link to a government site, but so what? The paper itself is written by a partisan group to achieve a partisan purpose. It is not proper to have this kind of link, advocating a certain action by Congress, included in an encyclopedia. MKil 18:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)MKil
    Now, this time you are wrong, congress deals with everything, it's part of our lifes, now, here you are totally out of line. Not advocating, stating what congress did, you can call it advocating and anything else, it belongs to public.
    Did you even read the paper? It has this at the end: "Congress needs to reauthorize SCHIP in 2007 to continue to cover kids currently enrolled in the program and to accelerate the rate of progress in covering more uninsured kids—until all kids have the coverage they need to stay healthy." That is clearly a partisan group urging Congress to do something. MKil 18:34, 18 July 2007 (UTC)MKil
    I realize this discussion is several months old, but I wanted to weigh in. I have never had the impression that some degree of POV in an externally linked website is forbidden on Wikpedia, as long as the link description is not inaccurate. I've seen it frequently on both sides of an issue, and I don't see any statement to the contrary at Wikipedia:External links, provided that other policies are not violated. So what is the problem with including http://covertheuninsured.org/factsheets/schip.pdf? Ward3001 00:24, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    How about the "undue weight" section, and types of links to be avoided number 9? Also, there's the "information that would be in the article were it a featured article", which this link offers little information AT BEST and what it does offer is biased. (205.243.71.71 21:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC))

    [edit] CHAMP

    I see that Congress this week passed CHAMP which reauthorizes SCHIP (which is due to expire on Sept. 30). Should we add this latest info? Of course, it still needs to pass the Senate. And Bush has said he'll veto it. TimidGuy 10:21, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

    Actually, personally I think the vetoed bill, it's history, and any future attempts to overide this / and future subsitute bills dealing with this should be in it's own article to keep existing law clearly seperated from proposed law. But if I'm in the minority then the "current bill" section should be renamed to whatever the offical title of the bill is. Jon 17:55, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
    Good point. TimidGuy 00:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
    With the US House having passed a similar bill to the vetoed one, I think it's even more important to have a seperate article on them; a similar length section on the now current bill to the previous one would take over to much of this article. Jon 13:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
    I'm not expressing an opinion either way about a separate article at this point, but I have some questions/concerns. The SCHIP article, IMHO, isn't very long at this point. How much additional info are we talking about, given the similarities between SCHIP and CHAMP? If the current info about CHAMP would quadruple the length of the SCHIP article, maybe there needs to be two articles. But there are advantages to having all the info in one article, at least until both houses of Congress get closer to passage. Ward3001 14:41, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
    I don't think a vetoed bill is significant enough to be split into its own article. "Someone or something that has been in the news for a brief period is not necessarily a suitable subject for an article in their own right." Perhaps that section could be shortened, because too much detail there and too much effort to cover the details of the new in-progress legislation will burden the article with recentism. I think a sentence or two at most on the new bill is appropriate. The outcome is what is important and relevant to this article, not necessarily the in-process details, which will change over time anyway. --Sfmammamia 16:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
    In addition to the vetoed bill, I'd sugest placing the new pending bill that recently passed the US House (which as of this moment doesn't seem to be in this article at all) there and not as yet another article. (Particularly because there is a veto threat on the new pending bill because for the same reasons the previous version was vetoed.) Also the continuing resolution reference is a bit out of place, I'll look for a better location for it. Jon 21:03, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Bush Veto

    Just reverted a vandalism...this might get ugly soon. Should it be prudent to add Bush's reasons for opposing the bill here? Or should it wait for the President to issue some sort of press conference about it? At this point, we just have his previous opinions, although I doubt they're different. Sirkan 14:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

    Seems like it would be good to add a sentence or clause. Anything more than that might escalate. TimidGuy 15:05, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
    Whitehouse.gov has a transcript from a speech delivered the day Bush vetoed the bill, with him discussing his reasoning, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071003-3.html Jeffhall318 22:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
    True...just added the sentence. We'll see how that plays out. Sirkan 15:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
    Good. Things are heating up. May need to get the attention of an admin. TimidGuy 17:28, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
    Just a reminder to everyone that per Wikipedia's NPOV policies, the article needs to present balanced coverage of BOTH sides of an issue: both those who support the extension bill AND those who oppose the extension bill. —Lowellian (reply) 12:03, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
    Well, now it seems a bit heavily weighted toward the CATO point of view. I would support cutting that down slightly. I think I'll delete the quote, since it's only there to rhetorically reinforce the point and is not really encyclopedia style. TimidGuy 14:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
    I agree with this assessment. I'm not a Bush fan, but there is not even a mention of why he vetoed the bill. A new, second sentence should be inserted, something to the tune of: "His reasoning behind the veto stemmed from concerns that it was too costly of an expansion", with an appropriate reference. (Or something to that effect) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.70.93 (talk) 15:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
    His reasoning, as stated in his speech, is not wholly over concerns with financing. It also comes from his view that purpose of the original bill be intended maintained: to help the children of parents too poor to afford private insurance, not to cover children whose parents could afford private insurance. The proposed statement does nothing to address this fundamental clash of ideologies about the role of government. The reauthorization/expansion of this bill has turned into the first recent major clash between big-government/entitlement liberals and small gov't/laissez-fair conservatives. I believe that once the battle plays out, it would not be amiss to make mention of the underlying issues.Jeffhall318 12:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
    Bush's veto is covered later in the article. The first part of the article deals with the program that was in place for 10 years. The later section deals with the current bill. TimidGuy 15:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

    Right now the article claims that the new bill increases the income level eligibility from 200% to 300% of the poverty level. FactCheck.org[1] notes that a 300% level was already possible under the old program and is not new, nor is it enforced under the new bill. So I'm editing the claim. --CS 10, Oct. 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.223.39.230 (talk) 04:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] temporarily putting paragraph here

    A study by the Urban Institute concludes that the House SCHIP bill would provide coverage to approximately 5 million of children who would otherwise remain uninsured. 85% of them live in households below 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL), or $41,300 for a family of 4 [1]. In addition, the House bill would allow additional 2.4 to 2.5 million children, with 60% below 200% of FPL, to switch from private to public insurance. These figures include 1.2 million children, predominantly between 200% and 300% of FPL, who would gain public coverage due to controversial eligibility expansions. Similar numbers are expected from the Senate bill.[2]

    I've moved the above paragraph here, since it seems outdated -- referring to the Senate bill in future tense. Seems like we need to square these projections with the bill that was vetoed. TimidGuy 00:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

    I'm not completely positive but I think the above numbers are close to that which was in the vetoed bill. Jon 16:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] No source for statement from Reid

    I deleted an insertion by an anonymous editor that seemed POV and inappropriate partisan commentary. The same editor inserted the following, which remains in the article but is unsourced.

    While the original Democratic proposal has been already compromised by cutting the program originally proposed in order to get the Republican votes to pass it, Bush has asked for further compromise on the program. Senator Reid, the Senate majority leader, has indicated that there will be no further compromise.

    Not sure what to do. TimidGuy 15:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

    I've cut that from the article for being unsourced POV as well. Jon 13:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Suggestion

    This is a great article, but I had trouble finding it because I was searching under SCHIP, the name most people know the program by. I suggest that the acronym be added to the title. However, I'm hesitant to do so myself if there is some good reason it was not included. Th17kit 01:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

    "SCHIP" already redirects to the article, so there's no reason to put the acronym in the article title. I'm not sure why you had trouble finding it. Ward3001 02:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
    Off hand, titles in Wikipedia appear to be case sensitive, so perhaps he entered all caps and the redirect was in all lower case. Jon 15:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
    Whether they're case sensitive depends on whether you click "Go" or "Search". But either way the article is easy to find. If you enter either "schip" or "SCHIP" and click Go, it takes you to the article. If you enter "SCHIP" and click Search, it goes to the article. If you enter "schip" and click Search, it gives you a list of articles with this one third from the top. My guess is the user mistyped the acronym. In any event, the acronym should not be put in the title. If someone wishes, a redirect page titled "schip" (lower case) could be created, but I really don't even see any need to do that. Ward3001 16:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] You Guys Left Out

    The qualify line is actually like $90,000 not $18,000.67.40.37.41 (talk) 15:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

    Do you have a reliable source for the $90,000 figure? Reliable sources I've seen state that income eligibility varies by state. Most states cover children in families with earned income up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which, in 2006, was equivalent to $33,000 for a family of three. --Sfmammamia (talk) 21:21, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
    I believe this figure comes from the recent debate over expanding SCHIP. I did a quick web search, and the first link I found seems to confirm this [2]. Wasn't this the upper end figure that opponents calculated would be allowable in states like NY if the original Democratic proposal passed unchanged? If so, it's a real number, but represents an estimated upper limit of eligibility for a proposed expansion, rather than current law. In most states the current eligibility limit is going to be much, much lower. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.145.79.247 (talk) 14:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)