I 
109TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3055
To amend the Social Security Act to guarantee comprehensive health care 
coverage for all children born after 2006. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 23, 2005
Mr. STARK (for himself, Mr. ABERCROMBIE, Mr. BERMAN, Mr. BRADY of 
Pennsylvania, Mr. BROWN of Ohio, Mrs. CHRISTENSEN, Mr. CONYERS, 
Mr. CROWLEY, Mr. CUMMINGS, Mr. DAVIS of Illinois, Mr. DOGGETT, Mr. 
ENGEL, Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA, Mr. FILNER, Mr. GUTIERREZ, Mr. HIN-
CHEY, Mr. JEFFERSON, Mr. KILDEE, Mr. KUCINICH, Ms. LEE, Mrs. 
MCCARTHY, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. MILLENDER-
MCDONALD, Mr. PALLONE, Mr. RANGEL, Mr. RUSH, Mr. RYAN of Ohio, 
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. SHERMAN, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, Mr. WEINER, Mr. 
WEXLER, Ms. WOOLSEY, and Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways 
and Means, and in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, 
for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case 
for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the 
committee concerned 
A BILL 
To amend the Social Security Act to guarantee comprehen-
sive health care coverage for all children born after 2006.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS; FINDINGS. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘MediKids Health Insurance Act of 2005’’. 
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents of 
this Act is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents; findings. 
Sec. 2. Benefits for all children born after 2006. 
‘‘TITLE XXII—MEDIKIDS PROGRAM 
‘‘Sec. 2201. Eligibility. 
‘‘Sec. 2202. Benefits. 
‘‘Sec. 2203. Premiums. 
‘‘Sec. 2204. MediKids Trust Fund. 
‘‘Sec. 2205. Oversight and accountability. 
‘‘Sec. 2206. Inclusion of care coordination services. 
‘‘Sec. 2207. Administration and miscellaneous. 
Sec. 3. MediKids premium. 
Sec. 4. Refundable credit for cost-sharing expenses under MediKids program. 
Sec. 5. Report on long-term revenues.
(c) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
(1) More than 9 million American children are 
uninsured. 
(2) Children who are uninsured receive less 
medical care and less preventive care and have a 
poorer level of health, which result in lifetime costs 
to themselves and to the entire American economy. 
(3) Although SCHIP and Medicaid are success-
fully extending a health coverage safety net to a 
growing portion of the vulnerable low-income popu-
lation of uninsured children, they alone cannot 
achieve 100 percent health insurance coverage for 
our nation’s children due to inevitable gaps during 
outreach and enrollment, fluctuations in eligibility,
variations in access to private insurance at all in-
come levels, and variations in States’ ability to pro-
vide required matching funds. 
(4) As all segments of society continue to be-
come more transient, with many changes in employ-
ment over the working lifetime of parents, the need 
for a reliable safety net of health insurance which 
follows children across State lines, already a major 
problem for the children of migrant and seasonal 
farmworkers, will become a major concern for all 
families in the United States. 
(5) The medicare program has successfully 
evolved over the years to provide a stable, universal 
source of health insurance for the nation’s disabled 
and those over age 65, and provides a tested model 
for designing a program to reach out to America’s 
children. 
(6) The problem of insuring 100 percent of all 
American children could be gradually solved by auto-
matically enrolling all children born after December 
31, 2006, in a program modeled after Medicare (and 
to be known as ‘‘MediKids’’), and allowing those 
children to be transferred into other equivalent or 
better insurance programs, including either private 
insurance, SCHIP, or Medicaid, if they are eligible
to do so, but maintaining the child’s default enroll-
ment in MediKids for any times when the child’s ac-
cess to other sources of insurance is lost. 
(7) A family’s freedom of choice to use other in-
surers to cover children would not be interfered with 
in any way, and children eligible for SCHIP and 
Medicaid would continue to be enrolled in those pro-
grams, but the underlying safety net of MediKids 
would always be available to cover any gaps in insur-
ance due to changes in medical condition, employ-
ment, income, or marital status, or other changes af-
fecting a child’s access to alternate forms of insur-
ance. 
(8) The MediKids program can be administered 
without impacting the finances or status of the exist-
ing Medicare program. 
(9) The MediKids benefit package can be tai-
lored to the special needs of children and updated 
over time. 
(10) The financing of the program can be ad-
ministered without difficulty by a yearly payment of 
affordable premiums through a family’s tax filing (or 
adjustment of a family’s earned income tax credit). 
(11) The cost of the program will gradually rise 
as the number of children using MediKids as the in-
surer of last resort increases, and a future Congress 
always can accelerate or slow down the enrollment 
process as desired, while the societal costs for emer-
gency room usage, lost productivity and work days, 
and poor health status for the next generation of 
Americans will decline. 
(12) Over time 100 percent of American chil-
dren will always have basic health insurance, and we 
can therefore expect a healthier, more equitable, and 
more productive society. 
SEC. 2. BENEFITS FOR ALL CHILDREN BORN AFTER 2006. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Social Security Act is amend-
ed by adding at the end the following new title: 
‘‘TITLE XXII—MEDIKIDS 
PROGRAM 
‘‘SEC. 2201. ELIGIBILITY. 
‘‘(a) ELIGIBILITY OF INDIVIDUALS BORN AFTER DE-
CEMBER 31, 2006; ALL CHILDREN UNDER 23 YEARS OF 
AGE IN FIFTH YEAR.—An individual who meets the fol-
lowing requirements with respect to a month is eligible to 
enroll under this title with respect to such month: 
‘‘(1) AGE.—
‘‘(A) FIRST YEAR.—As of the first day of 
the first year in which this title is effective, the 
individual has not attained 6 years of age.