State Children's Health Insurance Program - Reauthorization

Reauthorization

SCHIP was created in 1997 as a ten-year program; to continue past federal fiscal year 2007, passage of a reauthorization bill was required. The first two reauthorization bills to pass through Congress would also expand the program's scope; President George W. Bush vetoed them as improper expansions. A two-year reauthorization bill was signed into law by the President in December 2007 that would merely extend current SCHIP services without expanding any portion of the program. With the 2008 Presidential and Congressional elections bringing Democrats to a majority in both houses of Congress and to the Oval Office, SCHIP was reauthorized and expanded in the same bill through fiscal year 2013.