Castor Among White House Invitees for SCHIP Signing

Wed, February 04, 2009 - 3:09 PM

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa was among those invited by President Obama to the White House today to join him at the SCHIP bill-signing ceremony.

As the president discussed the measure before he signed it, Castor stood near him in a group of lawmakers, which included Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Obama had hugged Castor when he first entered the room.

Castor has a particular interest in the bill: The program grew from an idea instituted in Florida by former Education Commissioner Betty Castor – her mother – and the late Gov. Lawton Chiles, who sold the idea to former President Bill Clinton.

“This is a positive sign of a change in the direction of the country under President Obama, and this is a meaningful moment for me personally,” said Castor, in a statement.

Nationally, the measure would expand the coverage to an added 4.1 million children, on top of the current 7 million now enrolled.

How would the bill specifically impact Florida? Only rough estimates are available.

The office of Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami, a member of the House Ways & Means Committee, reported Wednesday there were 323,529 Florida children enrolled in SCHIP as fiscal year 2007, but nearly 800,000 uninsured children in the state.

Meek’s office projected that over 290,000 additional Florida children could gain coverage under the reauthorization of the program, resulting in what it said could be a 36 percent reduction of the uninsured children in the state.

Overall, the reauthorization would increase the funding for the health program by about $33 billion over the next 4 1/2 years, primarily to be paid for through a 62-cent-per-pack increase in the federal cigarette tax.

But as much as $2.1 billion of the costs will come from a revised federal excise tax on cigar manufacturers, with a maximum of 40 cents on big cigars – a jump over the current cap of five cents.

Still, the cigar industry – including local cigar manufacturers in West Tampa and Ybor City within Castor’s district—was in fear that the cap would be much higher. An original version of the bill in 2007 called for a $10 cap on big cigars, and later versions had a cap of $3 per cigar.


-- Billy House, Media General News Service