Children’s health plan flawed

During President Bush’s six and a half years in office he has only vetoed four bills. The… During President Bush’s six and a half years in office he has only vetoed four bills. The last president to veto fewer bills was James Garfield, who didn’t veto a single bill in his six and a half months as president in 1881. Two of the bills President Bush vetoed dealt with the federal government funding for stem cell research, particularly embryonic stem cells.

The third bill was an attempt by Congress to micromanage the war in Iraq. None of these vetoes were overridden by Congress. The fourth of President Bush’s vetoes came on Oct. 3, 2007 when he vetoed Congress’ attempt to increase the size and scope of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by 121 percent.

State Children’s Health Insurance Program is a joint state and federal government program designed to provide health insurance to children whose parents make too much to qualify for Medicaid but still may lack the financial recourses to buy private insurance.

The maximum income for a family of four to qualify is presently 200 percent of the poverty level, or about $40,000 a year. The program was slated to suffer a severe funding cut in 2013 unless reauthorized. Congressional leadership has seized this opportunity to push one of their biggest issues, universal health care.

It is a moral imperative to supply health care to children whose parents cannot afford to buy health insurance. Children have no say in the actions of their parents and should not be punished for them.

President Bush asked for $5 billion for SCHIP. However, Congress sent him a bill that gave $35 billion to SCHIP. The extra funding for the bill will come from new taxes on tobacco. For the proposed taxes to fully cover the new funding, 22 million new smokers and all present smokers must continue to smoke at their current rates, Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., told the Chicago Tribune.

The problem with the bill is not the amount of money. There can be no price tag on providing needy children with necessary health care. The problem is that this bill goes beyond the goal of providing disadvantaged children with health insurance. In some states, a family of four can make 400 percent of the federal poverty level, about $83,000, and still qualify for the program.

Furthermore, the program does not include any unearned sources of income such as Social Security, capital gains or dividends when determining eligibility, so family incomes can be even higher and they can still qualify, Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., told the Charlotte Observer. In addition, in some states, even parents and adults without children can qualify for the program, but these people are not children and should not be allowed to be part of the program.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the proposed expansion will add about 800,000 children to SCHIP that would already qualify for the existing program. Also, the CBO confirms that the expansion will add 1.5 million children to SCHIP that already have private insurance and migrate 1 million children from Medicaid to SCHIP.

Furthermore, a Social Security number is all that is asked for when applying for the program. The Social Security Administration warned that this would not verify legal status, allowing for illegal immigrants to benefit from this plan. Providing free health care to adults, wealthy families and illegal immigrants was not the purpose of SCHIP.

There is no doubt that SCHIP needs to be reauthorized, making it necessary for Congress to come up with a bipartisan solution. One solution offered by the Health Coverage Coalition for the Uninsured, consisted of both reauthorizing the SCHIP program and offering a tax break.

This program would reauthorize the SCHIP program with current funding and modest increases over time. It would also keep the eligibility requirement at 200 percent of the federal poverty line. Then, for people who make between 200 and 300 percent of the federal poverty line a tax break would be given. This tax break can take two forms, one in the form of a tax break to families who buy insurance for their children through work or on the market, and a second voucher for families who do not make enough for a tax credit to be beneficial.

No one is against spending money to provide insurance to children whose parents cannot afford to do so themselves, but people should be against a bill that has lost its focus. SCHIP was a program designed to provide needy children with health care, not a program that provides health care to adults and illegal immigrants while taking children off private insurance.

Will this be Bush’s first overridden veto? E-mail Joe at jjm43@pitt.edu.