Editorial - Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Oct. 18, 2007
Children's healthcare shouldn't be a partisan issue. And the U.S. House can send that message today by voting to override President Bush's ill-advised and unnecessary veto of a reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program, also known as SCHIP.
In September, 45 Republicans and 220 Democrats voted to approve a package that largely tracked a Senate CHIP bill. Senators from both parties joined to pass the compromise measure with a veto-proof majority.
Reps. Kay Granger of Fort Worth and Michael Burgess of Lewisville, who joined too many Texas Republicans in voting against the bill, surely don't oppose providing health coverage for children in struggling families. But they are misguided in not agreeing that the package is a workable, reasonable way to continue a valuable program and extend coverage to millions of children who otherwise would remain uninsured.
The bill, which would add $35 billion to CHIP over five years, would bring total spending for the program to $60 billion. It would cover about 4 million more children, the majority of whom already are eligible though not enrolled.
Bush has insisted on adding only $1 billion a year, for a total of $30 billion over five years. But that wouldn't even maintain coverage for children currently enrolled; even Republicans who support the $35 billion expansion point out that Bush's level of funding would cause 800,000 children to be dropped.
Perhaps the most misleading criticism of the expansion is that it amounts to middle-class welfare that would prompt thousands to jump from private insurance to the public dole.
Republican and Democratic negotiators -- including Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Charles Grassley of Iowa and Max Baucus of Montana -- crafted a bill that answers concerns of critics who said the program had strayed from its roots. The measure includes incentives for states to not expand eligibility limits too far and to enroll uninsured children on the lower end of the income scale. The measure bars coverage of legal and illegal immigrants. It prevents states from extending coverage to parents or childless adults.
In Texas, families earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line ($41,300 for a family of four) are eligible for CHIP, and about 327,000 children currently are covered. But of the 1.5 million uninsured children in Texas, about two-thirds fall below 200 percent of the poverty line, according to the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities.
Other approaches might provide more efficient, less expensive ways of extending coverage to the uninsured. But none is developed enough to offer a practical, available alternative to the CHIP plan that already has won support from a large majority of both chambers in Congress and more than 40 of the nation's governors.
A vote to override Bush isn't a vote for reckless spending -- it's a vote for rationality.
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