More than 8,000 uninsured Alaska children could receive new health care benefits if a bill approved by the U.S. House on Wednesday is also approved by the Senate and signed into law next week as expected by then-newly inaugurated President Barack Obama.

The expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP), known in Alaska as Denali KidCare, could provide new health care coverage to more than 4 million uninsured kids nationwide, roughly half of all uninsured American children.

Almost half of the estimated 19,000 uninsured children in Alaska could be covered by the legislation too, according to an analysis by Families USA, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

But that assumes that Alaska legislators in Juneau would be willing to provide the 35 percent matching funds for a program that would expand Denali KidCare coverage to families that earn up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Currently Alaska only provides coverage to families that earn up to 175 percent of the poverty threshold.

Created in 1997, CHIP provides health coverage to children in working families with incomes that are too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to make private insurance affordable.

Legislation to reauthorize and expand the program was twice passed by Congress in 2007 -- with all three members of Alaska's congressional delegation voting in favor -- but President Bush vetoed both bills.

Obama, by comparison, released a statement Wednesday applauding House passage of the CHIP legislation and urged the Senate to quickly do the same -- "so that it can be one of the first measures I sign into law when I am president."

Alaska Congressman Don Young this week voted in favor of the House bill. "Economically we are going through some hard times now, and the health of our children should not suffer because of it," Young said.

On the Senate side, Republican Lisa Murkowski and Democrat Mark Begich are both expected to support the bill, which was approved Thursday by the Senate Finance Committee.

In remarks after her vote in favor of expanding the children's health care program a year ago, Murkowski said CHIP was necessary to ensure these children are not left out.

Recently sworn in as the state's junior senator after his close victory over longtime Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, Begich campaigned on a platform that explicitly called for expanding Denali KidCare, which also provides health care to low-income pregnant women. Passage of the child health bill would provide $32.3 billion over four years to continue coverage for seven million children currently covered by the program and to extend coverage to four million more.

Find George Bryson online at adn.com/contact/gbryson or call 257-4318.

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