SCHIP: Health, Shmealth

A brief Cook's Tour of Bush and the Children's Health Insurance Program, the federal program that provides health insurance for lower-income children:

That was Bush in 2004 - during an election year.

Now, it's a different story.

In July, Bush announced he would veto any effort to expand CHIP - not because it doesn't work, but because it works too well:

President Bush yesterday rejected entreaties by his Republican allies that he compromise with Democrats on legislation to renew a popular program that provides health coverage to poor children, saying that expanding the program would enlarge the role of the federal government at the expense of private insurance.


The president said he objects on philosophical grounds to a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. Bush has proposed $5 billion in increased funding and has threatened to veto the Senate compromise and a more costly expansion being contemplated in the House.


"I support the initial intent of the program," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post after a factory tour and a discussion on health care with small-business owners in Landover. "My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government."

Ah yes: our president wishes to ratchet up Americans' suffering on philosophical grounds. Who's looking out for those poor beleaguered HMOs? Bush, that's who! Someday we'll see the wisdom of this and thank him for it.

After Bush's statement, outrage from predictable corners. For one, Bob Herbert, who quotes New Jersey Governor John Corzine and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer in a righteous froth over Bush's interference in their efforts to govern. The federal government seeks to impose a cap on what states set as an income ceiling for those eligible.

“The reality,” said Governor Spitzer, “is that there is an enormous proportion of American society above the poverty level but in the lower middle class that simply can’t afford health coverage.”

Wherever there are large numbers of families without coverage, you will find children who are suffering needlessly and, in extreme cases, dying. They don’t get the preventive care or the attention to chronic illness that they should.

“That has not only an immediate effect on their development,” said Mr. Spitzer, “but a long-term cost to society that is incalculable.”

Now Spitzer plans to sue the federal government to reverse its attempts at preventing New York from setting its own income ceiling.

All well and good - particularly fighting the Bush Administration on such a wildly unpopular, autocratic rule. But I stopped at this section at the bottom of the press release and sighed:

With the expansion, virtually all children in New York State would have access to affordable health insurance through a combination of Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and private commercial insurance. The initiative is a key piece of the Governor’s health reform agenda and is the first step in the Governor’s “Partnership for Coverage” initiative to expand access to health insurance for all New Yorkers through an incremental, building block approach.

One day we'll look back on this "incremental, building block approach" and wonder just how we allowed ourselves to be snookered into such a nonsensical arrangement.

Never have so many paid so few so much for so little.