Bush Vetoes Children's Health Insurance Bill: More Debt for Low Income Families

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Compassionate conservativism?

Or driving a stake through the heart of children, our country’s future?

And then asking their parents to reimburse the Feds for the cost of each stake.

That’s the message SuperFreakOnomics hears President George Bush sending to children across the country.

In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about, Bush vetoed the bill reauthorizing funding for the State Child Health Insurance Plan. The reauthorization bill, House Resolution 976, would have expanded the program at a cost of $35 billion over five years.

Under the vetoed bill, the government would subsidize health care for children in families of four or more who have an annual household income of $62,000 or less. The veto means millions of families making too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private health insurance, will see their children forced to do without health care.

According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, SCHIP “was established in 1997 under Title XXI of the Social Security Act as a matching grant to provide health insurance for low-income children who do not qualify for Medicaid, but whose families are not able to afford private coverage.”

The NASBO goes on to explain that 6 million children are enrolled in SCHIP. The program reduced the percentage of uninsured children from 14 percent in 1997 to 10.8 percent in 2005. Despite this, 8.3 million children still lack health insurance, of which 6 million to 7 million are eligible for SCHIP but are not enrolled in the program.

An indicator that SCHIP is no longer able to keep pace with the number of employers dropping their health plans, in 2006, for the first time in seven years, the number of children without health insurance increased to 11.2 percent, up from 10.8 percent in 2005, NASBO said.

Last December, 17 states faced a shortfall of $920 million through Sept. 30, 2007. Congress sort of addressed this by approving a stop-gap measure giving $271 million in unspent fiscal 2004 and 2005 SCHIP funds to those states.

Compounding the funding problem, SCHIP is a mandatory program with an annual cap, so increases in health care costs, which, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, are growing at twice the rate of inflation, are not addressed in the funding package.

The average cost of health care now totals $4,479 for an individual and $12,106 for family coverage, a 72 percent increase since 2002, Kaiser says.

NASBO says the annual SCHIP funding level will remain at fiscal 2007 levels through fiscal 2012, without factoring in the annual increases of providing health care. If these increases continue at the current pace, an additional $12 billion in federal money will be needed between fiscal 2008 and 2012 to eliminate future shortfalls.

Without additional money, NASBO estimates 36 states will run out of federal funding by 2012, putting coverage of 1.5 million children at risk.

The bill to expand SCHIP would cost an additional $35 billion over five years.

Dubya’s reasons for the veto?

He sees it as a step towards the evil "socialized medicine." Put another way, Dubya sees this as government intrusion in the private market place of health care.

The Center for American Progress calls SCHIP “the most private of the public programs, delivered primarily through private health insurers and funded through a block grant.”

Funny, Dubya didn’t see his plan to privatize the Medicare drug plan, at a cost of 10 times the expansion of SCHIP, as an intrusion of government into the private sector.

But then again, drooling seniors on drugs are old enough to vote.

Kids covered under this plan aren’t old enough yet to vote. And without proper health care, some of them won’t live long enough to be able to vote.

Speaking of votes, check out this ad from Campaign For America’s Future.

Dubya also said the plan expands eligibility to children in families with incomes of $83,000.

In fact, the plan makes it harder for states to expand coverage to children in families with higher incomes. Families making no more than twice the poverty level of roughly $20,000 for a family of four, and often far less, would be eligible under the plan, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Studies show the majority of children who would be enrolled under the proposal are eligible now for the program. And about two-thirds of the children who would be helped by the proposal are uninsured now, proof that the bill does not simply shift children from private insurance to public insurance.

Not expanding the program will lead to more families making a choice between paying for medical procedures or keeping a roof over their heads. A choice becoming more and more likely as mortgage defaults continue to rise.

Some studies point to medical costs as a big contributor to personal bankruptcies, which have been rising despite the change in bankruptcy laws not too long ago.

To me, vetoing a $35 billion increase, spread out over five years, is very short-sighted.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel feels the same way.

He pointed out that funding for 41 days of the war in Iraq – $12.2 billion – would cover the 10 million kids the SCHIP expansion seeks to insure.

People say I have a dry sense of humor, but I think the kids in this clip from Families USA say it better than I can.