This week in the State House (17 Feb 07)

[struggle4progress]

-- HEALTH INSURANCE - Nearly 80,000 uninsured children in South Carolina could receive health coverage under a proposal heading to the House budget-writing committee. The plan would expand who is covered by Medicaid's Children's Health Insurance Program, which helps families who earn too much for Medicaid but not enough to afford private health insurance. The budget provision would more than double the number of children already in South Carolina's CHIP program.

-- GUARD-TUITION: The state would pay National Guardsmen's college tuition up front under a bill that advanced to the Senate floor. Currently, guardsmen are reimbursed for college loans. The National Guard College Assistance Program would instead pay up to $4,500 tuition yearly for four years. The proposal would require guardsmen to commit to four years in the National Guard after finishing their courses.

-- PREPAID TUITION: Parents could no longer enroll in a program that freezes college tuition costs under a bill headed to the Senate floor. The program, started in 1997, lets parents prepay tuition at the current rate, saving them from ever-rising increases. Currently, they can enter the program until their child finishes tenth grade. A bill passed Wednesday in a Senate committee would close the program to new members because of its looming deficit.

-- BUDGET SURPLUS: Most of the state's budget surplus would fund an access road from the interstate to a new port terminal in North Charleston under a proposal that moved to the Senate. The House agreed to spend 80 percent of the state's $171.5 million surplus on the 1.5-mile road, which would connect the planned terminal directly to Interstate 26, bypassing local roads and railroad tracks. The plan would fund half of the road's estimated $277 million price tag with money collected but not spent in the 2005-06 fiscal year ...

http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6103830&nav=0RaMcMfj