Federalism, Partisan Politics, and Shifting Support for State Flexibility: The Case of the U.S. State Children’s Health Insurance Program

bipartisan effort was shattered by the contentious efforts to reauthorize the program in 2007. What brought about this significant partisan conflict? We argue that despite the rhetoric of bipartisanship surrounding SCHIP, partisan conflict was just below the surface at the time of SCHIP enactment; using panel data from the American states from 1997 to 2007, we show how partisan politics shaped only certain aspects of state SCHIP implementation, however, when partisan conflict emerged in the American states, it developed in unexpected ways based on the federal debate; finally, we detail how state actions eventually served as a policy feedback effect up to the federal level, which exacerbated partisan conflict during the SCHIP reauthorization period. When the federal government passed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997 it was touted as enjoying broad bipartisan success. The prominent image of the Senate bill’s two co-sponsors: Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) symbolized this bipartisanship which would be attributed to SCHIP for years to come (Dubay, Hill, and Kenney 2002; Iglehar