Congress probably will have to settle for a shorter, less costly reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) than the five-year expansion Democrats are seeking, according to a former top official.

President Bush has threatened to veto both the $47.4 billion House-passed expansion (HR 3162) and the $35 billion Senate version (S 1893), calling both too expensive.

Leslie V. Norwalk, who recently stepped down as acting head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which administers SCHIP, said in an interview Thursday that congressional Democrats would likely be forced to scale back the final bill to get it signed into law.

“Whether it’s two years or one year or five years, a lot of that will just depend on amounts. I don’t know how they’re going to get to five years . . . Something shorter, that is less money — the president will have a harder time vetoing it,” Norwalk said.

The Senate bill would offset the costs of the SCHIP expansion with a 61-cent increase in cigarette taxes, to $1 per pack. The House bill includes a 45-cent cigarette tax increase and reductions in federal payments to private Medicare Advantage plans, which currently receive about 12 percent more per beneficiary than traditional Medicare costs.

Norwalk said any payment cuts would likely have to be smaller and more targeted than those in the House package. “It depends on how they do it. In talking about it when I was there, I suggested that they look at the scalpel approach relative to the axe approach,” she said.