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SCHIP. I hope folks are following the battle over SCHIP (the State Children's Health Insurance Program) in Congress. This is the fight that Rahm Emmanuel likes to call "Spring Training" for universal health care, which helps explain why George W. Bush is readying to veto a bipartisan bill expanding health insurance for children. Here's the state of play: The Senate Finance Committee has drafted, on a bipartisan basis, a reauthorization and expansion of SCHIP that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would extend coverage to 4.1 million currently uninsured children. The expansion of SCHIP would cost $35 billion over the next five years, to be paid for by an increase in the tobacco tax.
Bush's reasons for vetoing the plan are purely and explicitly ideological. "The proposal would dramatically expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, adding nonpoor children to the program, and more than doubling the level of spending,” complains White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "This will have the effect of encouraging many to drop private coverage, to go on the government-subsidized program."
So the literal argument here is that the SCHIP change will encourage children to move onto SCHIP, and as a matter of principle, the president wants as few individuals on government-based insurance as possible. Charming. And remember, this all happens in the context of an insurance market that has left over 9 million children without coverage. This is the market Bush sees it as his duty to protect.
One way or the other, on September 30th, SCHIP will expire, and the millions of children and families currently relying on it will be without health coverage. The President certainly likes his showdowns. But my guess is a showdown with Congress over whether children should have health care isn't one he's going to win. This seems like a bill Congress could continually send back to his desk, and the more the press reports on the battle lines, the more pressure will build not only for Bush to sign, but for Republicans to overturn his veto.
--Ezra Klein
COMMENTS (5)
But my guess is a showdown with Congress over whether children should have health care isn't one he's going to win.
Still naive after all these years?
the more pressure will build not only for Bush to sign, but for Republicans to overturn his veto.
I'd be interested to see a list of the Republican Senators who you think would get us to 67, and how you think their feet would be held to the fire by constituents who would be told "It's socialist!" and "They're trying to force you into a government program!"
Posted by: mds | July 16, 2007 11:42 AM
Let's see, you need sixteen once Johnson gets back.
The first five are easy:
Snowe, Collins, Coleman, Specter, Smith. Then there are some occasional moderates: Alexander, Shelby, Voinovich. Then there are the Senators, mostly from the South, for whom SCHIP is a giant win that they can bring home to their state. Hutchison might support it. Don't know about Lott and Cochran, or Dole or Burr. DeMint and Graham obviously not. And Sununu to save his hide.
Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | July 16, 2007 12:23 PM
Then there are the Senators, mostly from the South, for whom SCHIP is a giant win that they can bring home to their state.
But all of those Senators also get a giant win out of opposing an evil taxpayer-funded "big government" program that doesn't involve subsidizing large industries in their home states. Lott voted against the Medicare drug plan after voting for cloture just so he could preen in front of the rubes back home about opposing entitlement expansion. He has since voted to block fixes for Part D, and also voted against emergency health care for Katrina survivors. And he's bragged about how obstructionist Senate Republicans are, regardless of the wishes of the electorate.
And Sununu is going to have to start opposing the White House on a whole lot more than SCHIP to save his hide.
So sorry, since there has been no meaningful resistance to the White House on any issue of significance by most of the senators on your list, I'll have to remain unconvinced that "expanding socialized medicine" will be the straw that broke the camel's back. Especially when most of them could sneer "Fuck you" to military families over the Webb amendment.
Posted by: mds | July 16, 2007 1:25 PM
"Bush's reasons for vetoing the plan are purely and explicitly ideological. "The proposal would dramatically expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, adding nonpoor children to the program, and more than doubling the level of spending,” complains White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "This will have the effect of encouraging many to drop private coverage, to go on the government-subsidized program.""
Well, here's my question and I ask it, in part, because you don't say.
When they say it will add "non-poor" children to the SCHIP program, how much money *do* their parents make?
Because in NY, Elliot Spitzer is adding children whose parents make up to $81,000 per year. (I don't think I'll see that salary in my lifetime). So, are NY taxpayers, some of them poor adults making way less than $81,000 (some of whome have no doubt gotten kicked around their entire lives) *really* supposed to help foot the healthcare bill for these children?
I ask this, also, because Governor Anti-Corruption has been taking pot shots at the para-professional healthcare workers' union for seeking to protect their members' salaries.
So, in the bill in Congress, how much money do these parents make?
Posted by: Anonymous | July 16, 2007 9:02 PM
With his vocal opposition to the expansion of the S-CHIP program to provide health care coverage for more of America's children, President Bush is returning to the same tried and true formula he first pioneered in Texas. That is, Bush initially fought the legislation on ideological grounds before caving to popular pressure and grudgingly accepting some version of the bill. Then, as with the Texas S-CHIP program, the Texas Patients Bill of Right and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit, Bush claimed credit for it.
for the details, see:
"S-CHIP on Bush's Shoulder."
Posted by: Angry One | July 25, 2007 4:37 PM