SCHIP – Hank Kalet

Unlucky 13 — for the GOP

President George W. Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program is going to stand — for now — because 13 more Republicans could not be convinced to do what was in the best interest of the nation’s children.

Opponents argue that the expansion of the SCHIP program would extend it to some middle-income families, and possibly some upper-income families.

My response is so what. Health insurance in this country is a travesty and government has — or at least it should have — a responsibility to do everything it can to ensure that as many people are covered as possible. SCHIP is not a perfect program, but it is a necessary stop gap until we all wake up and realize that a single-payer, national plan is necessary.

Shame on the president for his veto and on those members of the House of Representatives and the Senate who voted to uphold it.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Take that, you obstreperous children

Seven years in and the president has vetoed four bills — including one today that denies health coverage to about 10 million children of low- and moderate-income families. The bill would have reauthorized and expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, to cover an additional 3.4 million kids (from 6.6 million).

But according to our fearless leader, this was not about denying coverage but about a “philosphical divide.” The nearly two thirds of House members and more than two thirds of Senators apparently believe their responsibility was to cover as many children as they could; the president believes in private insurance.

The policies of the government ought to be, help poor children and to focus on poor children. And the policies of the government ought to be, help people find private insurance, not federal coverage. And that’s where the philosophical divide comes in. I happen to believe that what you’re seeing when you expand eligibility for federal programs is the desire by some in Washington, D.C. to federalize health care. I don’t think that’s good for the country. I believe in private medicine. I believe in helping poor people — which was the intent of S-CHIP, now being expanded beyond its initial intent. I also believe that the federal government should make it easier for people to afford private insurance. I don’t want the federal government making decisions for doctors and customers.

Customers. Apparently patients are no different than car buyers — except that many are sick and most are scared and confused.

The president’s answer, as it has been for most issues, is to play with the tax code:

That’s why I believe strongly in health savings accounts or association health plans to help small business owners better afford insurance for their workers. That’s why I believe we ought to change the federal tax code. You’re disadvantaged if you work for a small business and/or an individual trying to buy insurance in the marketplace — disadvantaged relative to somebody working for a large company. If you work for a large company, you get your health insurance after tax. If you buy insurance you have to pay — no, you buy your insurance after taxes as an individual; you get your insurance pre-tax when you’re working for a large corporation. You’re at a disadvantage if you’re an individual in the market place.

So I think we ought to change the tax code. I — my view is, is that every family ought to get a $15,000 deduction off their income taxes, regardless of where they work, in order to help people better afford insurance in the marketplace.

Nothing wrong with altering the tax code to make medical expenses an automatic, pretax deduction. But that won’t fix the problem.

Providing coverage and getting the insurance companies out of the mix just might.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

Corzine steps upand applies Band-Aid

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
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.