October 03, 2007
Bush Vetoes SCHIP Expansion
As promised, President Bush has quietly vetoed a bill vastly expanding a children's health insurance program. Otherwise known as SCHIP, the program is funded by both state and federal governments to cover medical care for children too rich to qualify for Medicare but too poor to afford private insurance.
The bipartisan bill would add $35 billion over five years to the popular program. The uninsured rate has boomed during Bush's presidency, even as the economy has rebounded from near-recession in 2002. According to the federal government, more than 6 million children lack health insurance, and 45 percent of all children get some kind of publicly funded medical care.
The Senate version passed 68-31, enough to override a presidential veto. The House is about a dozen votes short; Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley is among the bill's supporters courting those Republicans to join the majority.
The politically hypercharged issue stands to come back to haunt members during their re-election campaigns next year.
The president criticizes the bill as far too costly, and has said he would veto any package that included a tax increase. The bipartisan bill would raise the federal cigarette tax to 61 cents per pack. Bush wanted the program increased by $5 billion, and has predicted that Congress' expansion would give middle-class families who could otherwise afford private insurance to place their children on the rolls.
More controversial are the special waivers that several states have used to make exceptions to coverage. About 14 states have allowed adults to enroll, some arguing that doing so is an inducement to obtain coverage for their children. According to the Government Accountability Office [PDF], nearly 640,000 adults were covered by SCHIP in FY2005. The federal government initially approved the waivers, however, and the new legislation would phase out adults on SCHIP.
Still other states have issued waivers for families making 200 to 300 times the national poverty level -- an income bracket never intended for SCHIP eligibility, the administration contends. It is for these reasons that SCHIP is both running out of money and doesn't require nearly as much as Congress wants to pour into it, Bush argues.
But when it comes to families who can't afford health insurance, states are in a real bind. Some have cited restrictions on Medicare as the reason for moving some families onto SCHIP. Either way, time is an issue: At least 11 states have suspended enrollment for SCHIP while the federal government sorts this out.
Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) announced Monday that Maryland would join seven other states in a lawsuit aimed at preventing Bush from squashing SCHIP expansion. Several governors fear that new Medicare restrictions will knock hundreds of thousands off the rolls, sticking their governments with the tab.
Democrats and their allies have kept the heat on Republicans to depart from Bush. The campaign arm of House Democrats has put out ads targeting holdout GOP lawmakers; on Saturday, a 12-year-old child who had recovered from a coma delivered the Democratic response to Bush's weekly radio address; and on Monday, SCHIP backers unleashed a load of tots to protest Bush in front of the White House.
The conventional wisdom is that Republicans don't want to be pinned as saying no to health care for poor kids. That may be true, but similarly, Democrats don't want to be seen as using formerly comatose children to hold fiscal-responsibility Republicans hostage, either.
Bush is en route to Lancaster, Pa., to deliver a speech on the economy. If he comments on the veto, we'll update.
Posted at 11:05 AM
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Bush Administration, Congress, Health, House, President Bush, Senate, Taxes
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