By comparison, Maine’s projected shortfall from the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, is a dinghy amongst the national fleet. At $6.5 million, it’s less than 10 percent of the anticipated shortfall in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, 4 percent of New Jersey, or 2 percent of Illinois.

Fourteen states in all expect SCHIP, which funds health insurance to children mired in the gap between Medicaid eligibility and the ability to afford private insurance, to fail its financial course this fiscal year, the last of its 10-year, $40 billion, authorization from Congress.

Today, the Legislature should vote on a resolution urging Congress to reauthorize SCHIP, adding the state’s voice to a national choir that includes Maine’s congressional delegation, many state officials, and health care organizations.

SCHIP is touted by advocates, such as the Maine Equal Justice Partners, as a rousing success that’s insured about 15,000 Maine children who would otherwise not have health insurance. SCHIP’s crew of insured children numbers about 6 million nationwide.

Plugging SCHIP’s leak for the 14 states is estimated at $745 million. Meeting its obligation for the next five years is estimated to take $13.4 billion, while advocates say approximately $50 billion is required to reach 2 million children, and others, who still remain uninsured.

President Bush has recommended $5 billion over the coming half-decade, which critics deride as paltry. Critics of SCHIP, on the other hand, say states abused their first $40 billion, and should open their wallets to bridge the gap.

The program needs reauthorization because SCHIP is working. Take Iowa, for example, where the Hawk-I program (Healthy and Well Kids in Iowa) funded by SCHIP has increased from 9,000 to 36,000 enrollees since 2000, according to the Des Moines Register.

Maine’s growth rate hasn’t been as severe – from about 13,000 to its current 14,800 – but advocates point to the 19,000 children eligible, but still uninsured, as proof of the program’s necessity.

They’re right. SCHIP, as the largest public health investment in three decades when it was unveiled in 1997, has helped to reduce the number of uninsured children nationally by approximately one-third.

Stumbling on its reauthorization now could prove economically, and socially, disastrous.

Maine’s delegation should be applauded for working to keep SCHIP’s sails full. Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins are co-sponsoring legislation to bail out SCHIP, the Keep Children Covered Act, while Snowe and Rep. Tom Allen serve on committees with oversight of the program.

Short-term funding for SCHIP should also soon be tacked onto a war appropriations bill. Tack our support to reauthorization as well. It has earned it, and policy wonks, if they wish, can scour the program for potential efficiencies later, after SCHIP becomes financially shipshape.

For now, Congress must keep SCHIP afloat.