SCHIP, Yes! SCHIP Expansion, No!

The big health care news this week is the U.S. House of Representatives' reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Unfortunately, the House not only reauthorized the program; it also expanded it way beyond its original intent.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt has some useful and insightful comments on this issue:

We all want to see every American insured, and President Bush has proposed a plan to see that everyone is. Congress, instead, is pushing a massive expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) that grows government without helping nearly as many children.

The president's plan, announced last January, would fix our discriminatory tax policy so that every American family received a $15,000 tax break for purchasing health insurance. If Congress acted on the president's plan, nearly 20 million more Americans would have health insurance, according to the independent Lewin Group.

In contrast, ....Congress would more than double government spending on SCHIP and extend the program to families earning as much as $83,000 a year. But their plan would add fewer than 3 million children to SCHIP, and many of the newly eligible children already have private insurance. So instead of insuring nearly 20 million more Americans privately, Congress would spend billions of dollars to move middle-income Americans off private insurance and onto public assistance.

Leavitt goes on to point out that Congress' SCHIP expansion will actually allocate billions of dollars more than is necessary to cover the low income children while allowing states to divert SCHIP dollars from children to adults. Of course, many states see this aspect of Congress' expansion plan as a boon. Nevertheless, if you look at the big picture, it's not hard to see that this would be an immense financial drain on the federal government. Worst of all, the SCHIP expansion is clearly a means of shifting more people out of the private system and into government paid health care - a dangerous direction to go.

Leavitt concludes:

SCHIP is part of the fix for low-income children, and Congress should put politics aside and send the president a clean, temporary extension of the current program. Expanding SCHIP is not the only way or the best way to insure the uninsured. The president's plan is better. It would benefit many more Americans. It would focus SCHIP on the children who need help most. And it would move us more sensibly toward our common goal of every American insured.

Now that the House voted for SCHIP expansion and the Senate appears poised to do the same, there is one bit of hope in the gathering gloom: The House's vote for expansion does not have a veto proof majority, and President Bush says he will veto the legislation. Let's hope he makes good on his threat.

In contrast, ....Congress would more than double government spending on SCHIP and extend the program to families earning as much as $83,000 a year. But their plan would add fewer than 3 million children to SCHIP, and many of the newly eligible children already have private insurance. So instead of insuring nearly 20 million more Americans privately, Congress would spend billions of dollars to move middle-income Americans off private insurance and onto public assistance.

Leavitt goes on to point out that Congress' SCHIP expansion will actually allocate billions of dollars more than is necessary to cover the low income children while allowing states to divert SCHIP dollars from children to adults. Of course, many states see this aspect of Congress' expansion plan as a boon. Nevertheless, if you look at the big picture, it's not hard to see that this would be an immense financial drain on the federal government. Worst of all, the SCHIP expansion is clearly a means of shifting more people out of the private system and into government paid health care - a dangerous direction to go.

Leavitt concludes:

SCHIP is part of the fix for low-income children, and Congress should put politics aside and send the president a clean, temporary extension of the current program. Expanding SCHIP is not the only way or the best way to insure the uninsured. The president's plan is better. It would benefit many more Americans. It would focus SCHIP on the children who need help most. And it would move us more sensibly toward our common goal of every American insured.

Now that the House voted for SCHIP expansion and the Senate appears poised to do the same, there is one bit of hope in the gathering gloom: The House's vote for expansion does not have a veto proof majority, and President Bush says he will veto the legislation. Let's hope he makes good on his threat.