Bill Harlan at Mt. Blogmore comments on the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and the contest between Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin and the White House. Mr. Harlan asks, "Still, shouldn’t ALL children have health insurance?"
Well, we'd like all children to have health care, and to the extent having health insurance is helpful to that end, well sure. But then we have to ask the questions that those who oppose the Democratic expansion of SCHIP are asking:
1. Who pays for health insurance? There is some dispute over the numbers, but it is clear that the SCHIP program is covering middle-class families and is expanding beyond that. Shouldn't we first ask whether parents can afford to pay for their kids' health insurance before we ask the public to do it? Abraham Lincoln once said that the purpose of government is to do for people that which they cannot do themselves. If parents are capable of paying for health insurance, yet are not doing so, then it seems wrong to ask the public to make up for parental irresponsibility.
2. On a related note, as Peter Ferrara points out, 50-60% of the children who would become eligible if the Democrats get their way already have health insurance. Why do we do a blanket expansion of a program to cover those who are already covered? Why not target those without health insurance?
3. As Michael Cannon points out, even if we grant there is a federal role, are there more efficient ways to cover children than SCHIPs? Why have tax payers send money to Washington just to have Washington send it back to the states after trimming off a good chunk for bureaucracy? How about not taking the money in the first place? There is already a healthy tax credit for children. How about expanding it? Or providing a tax credit to purchase health insurance for children?
4. Cost. Readers should know that President Bush is in favor of keeping this program. The difference is that House Democats, including Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, want to increase spending by 300% on SCHIPs, while Senate Dems, including Sen. Johnson, want to increase it 100%. Here's Ferrara:
President Bush proposed to increase funding for SCHIP by $5 billion, from $25 billion to $30 billion. But House Democrats passed a bill tripling spending to $75 billion. The Senate bill merely increased spending by more than 100 percent to $60 billion.
In a time when the federal government is getting its fiscal house back in order, isn't it irresponsible to increase spending on programs by 300%? Why not simply continue a the program as it is? The Bush administration is saying that states must cover 95% of children under 200% of poverty before they can start covering those over 250% of poverty. That is hardly draconian.
I'll let David Freddoso have the last word:
If the income threshold for SCHIP already sounds high for a family of four, it is more so for larger families. My father provided a pretty good life to our family of seven on his comfortable but modest university professor’s salary. He says he never even thought of going on welfare — but maybe he should have. Even Bush’s new “draconian” SCHIP rules would have allowed all five of us kids to go on government health insurance, as long as Dad was making $77,725 or less. The Democrats’ plan would have covered us all on a $93,000 salary, or even (had we lived in New York State) $124,000! (I have trouble imagining my own mother as a six-figure welfare queen.)
The Democrats’ SCHIP outrage, while perhaps politically savvy (who could oppose insuring children?), has nothing to do with the real problem of those poor and uninsured. There are several ways the government could make insurance affordable — President Bush has proposed a generous health-insurance tax deduction, and others have proposed a repeal or circumvention of burdensome state0insurance mandates that massively inflate prices.
But the Democrats’ expansion of SCHIP into the middle class is not a solution to any existing problem. It is welfare for those already faring well, and with an eye toward expanding government in the future.
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