WASHINGTON – Maine’s program that provides health insurance coverage for children in low-income families may face a shortfall of as much as $6.5 million in 2007, according to a new study.

The State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which the federal government and the states jointly finance, provides health insurance coverage to children in families that earn too much to be eligible for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance.

“Generally it covers low-income working families and fills in that gap and provides health insurance and health care,” said Matt Broaddus, research associate at the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He said the program covers more than 4 million children nationwide, most of whom otherwise would be uninsured.

Federal funds budgeted for fiscal year 2007 will not be enough for the program to maintain current enrollment levels in 17 states, including Maine, through the end of the fiscal year, which ends next Sept. 30, Broaddus said. “Based on data provided to the federal government, it looks like Maine’s shortfall will be about $570,000,” Broaddus said. “But when we talked to officials in the state of Maine, they reported that, actually, expenditure figures looked like they would be higher than what they reported to the federal government and thus would result potentially in a shortfall as high as $6.5 million.”

Without additional funds, states such as Maine will have to either increase state spending for the program or scale back their coverage by reducing eligibility, capping enrollment, eliminating benefits, increasing beneficiary cost-sharing or cutting payments to providers, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ analysis.

In any event, the federal-state program is set to expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The program, authorized in 1997 for a 10-year period, provides critical access to health coverage, preventive care and neonatal visits for children in Maine.

U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and 17 other senators, on Tuesday urged the Senate leadership to enact emergency legislation to fully fund the program for fiscal year 2007. The call for immediate action came just four days after Snowe and fellow Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins sent a letter to President Bush asking him to secure funds to continue the insurance program beyond 2007. “It is unacceptable and incomprehensible that today in the United States of America more than 9 million children are without health insurance and too often do not receive the care they need to grow and develop,” Snowe said.

The reauthorization of the children’s insurance program “will be one of the most important issues for children we consider in the 110th Congress,” Snowe and Collins wrote in their letter to the president, urging him to include funds for the program in the 2008 budget to ensure its continuation.

Broaddus said that while the program’s reauthorization was certainly an important issue, it was critical to recognize the immediate needs of the 17 states with projected financial shortfalls. The number of uninsured Americans reached a record level of 46.6 million in 2005. Without increased funds, Broaddus said, 610,000 children would be at risk of losing their health insurance coverage.

“Since the enactment of the SCHIP legislation at the federal level, the uninsurance rate for children in Maine has fallen by more than half,” said Ana Hicks, policy analyst at Maine Equal Justice Partners, an advocacy group for low-income people. “It’s significant and meant that Maine has been able to cover many more children with critical health coverage and has meant that we have one of the lower uninsured rates in the country.”