States Battle Over Health Insurance

The battle over the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is being fought largely between members of Congress from high-income states, such as Maryland, versus members from low-income states, such as South Dakota and Mississippi, which rank near the bottom in median household income.

Eligibility Varies

Some states, such as South Dakota, currently offer CHIP only to people with incomes up to twice the federal poverty threshold, which is $20,444 for a family of four with two children.

So in those states, families with income of $40,888 are eligible.

But other states, such as Maryland, which has the highest median household income in the nation, provide CHIP coverage to people with incomes three times the poverty line.

On the decisive Senate vote to push ahead with expansion of the CHIP program, where both senators from a state voted for CHIP expansion, they came from states with an average household income of nearly $50,000.

But where both senators from a state voted against CHIP expansion, they came from states with an average household income of under $42,000, including the lowest-income states such as Kentucky, Oklahoma and Mississippi.

The economic clash works between congressional districts, too: House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, an outspoken opponent of CHIP expansion, represents a district where the median income is $36,962.

His Republican colleague from New York, Rep. Vito Fossella, who voted to expand CHIP, represents a district that includes Staten Island and part of Brooklyn in New York City. In Fossella’s district, the median income is $62,108, nearly 70 percent higher than in Blunt’s district.