Senate rejects effort to revoke the Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act
Immigrants' Rights Update, Vol. 17, No. 4, July 15, 2003

Advocates won a key victory when the U.S. Senate rejected an amendment by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) that would have stripped the restoration of health care to lawfully present pregnant women and children from the Medicare Prescription Drug bill (S. 1). The amendment failed by a vote of 65 to 33. All of the Democrats except Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) voted against the amendment; they were joined by 19 Republicans.

The Medicare bill, which incorporates the provisions of the Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act (ICHIA), passed the Senate by an overwhelming margin (76 to 21). The ICHIA gives states the option to provide basic health coverage to lawfully present pregnant women and children in their Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP). Senator Sessions’ amendment would have deleted the ICHIA and substituted a nonbinding “sense of the Senate” that the Finance Committee should hold hearings on this issue.

The House of Representatives also passed a Medicare bill by a margin of one vote (216 to 215). The House bill does not include the immigrant provisions.

A conference committee is expected to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill in the next few weeks. The Senate conferees are Charles Grassley (R-IA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Don Nickles (R-OK), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Bill Frist (R-TN), Max Baucus (D-MT), John Rockefeller (D-WV), Thomas Daschle (D-SD), and John Breaux (D-LA). The House conferees will be named soon.

President Bush has indicated that he wants to sign a Medicare bill into law prior to Congress’s month-long August recess. It is unlikely, however, that the two houses will be able to overcome the significant differences between the two bills in such a short period of time.

The ICHIA provision has overcome several hurdles already. The provision survived an attempt by Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK) to strip it during consideration of the Medicare bill by the Senate Finance committee. The victory in committee was weakened by the Bush administration when, in a letter outlining its position on the Finance Committee’s Medicare bill, the administration explicitly opposed the inclusion of the restoration. The strong bipartisan vote in the Senate combined with sustained efforts from advocates to increase support from House Republicans could provide the final push to ensure that the ICHIA remains in the final Medicare bill.