Thousands of poor families don’t know whether they will get state aid they have been promised to help them buy insurance because the House and Senate still disagree on health care legislation.
Legislators created the subsidy program last year and planned to start providing aid in 2009. Initially, it would go to 8,500 parents whose household incomes are 50 percent or less of the federal poverty level, or $8,800 for a single parent with two children.
But the Senate gave first-round approval Tuesday to a bill postponing the subsidies indefinitely, rejecting four attempts to see that the aid starts flowing next year. Senators planned to take a final vote Wednesday to determine whether the bill goes to the House.
Senate Republican leaders are nervous about the potential cost of the insurance subsidies to the state.
“We can’t afford it,” said Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, an Independence Republican. “When we made the decision last year, we committed ourselves to something that we are not going to be in a position to deliver.”
But in the House, leaders in both parties brokered a deal to make sure that poor families get at least a year’s worth of subsidies.
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