New Jersey, at the direction of Gov. Jon Corzine, is ready to take on the president over health care.
The state is suing the federal government over new rules that would cut thousands of children off from state health-care subsidies — a move the Corzine administration rightly calls “incomprehensible.”
The program — the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP — is jointly funded by the federal and state governments and is designed to provide health care coverage to families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but no more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
States have some flexibility under the program that allows them to raise the income threshold and cover more kids — which is where the lawsuit comes in. The Bush administration wants to place limits on this expansion, either through legislation or via administative order.
But Congress in a bipartisan vote is preparing to extend the program and allow for greater flexibility at the state leve — a move the administration is threatening to veto. An override is likely, but shouldn’t be necessary. Read my Dispatches column on SCHIP from Sept. 20 to see why .
In the end, as I write here, SCHIP is just a Band-Aid and should be made redundant by a single-payer, universal health care system. That should be the goal, because it is the only way to ensure that every uninsured and underinsured American, child and adult, get a baseline of care.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Hank Kalet 