8-01-07, 9:25 am

The Senate opened debate yesterday (July 31) on a bill that would reauthorize the State Children Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) and provide new funding to cover an additional 3 million uninsured children under the popular 10-year old program.

Despite the success of the program, the US Census Bureau estimates that about 9 million children went without insurance in 2006.

The program provides low-cost insurance for mainly working families who cannot afford sky-rocketing insurance for their children. The program helps working families pay for childhood medical needs from everything from regular check-ups and run-of-the-mill infections to expensive asthma and allergy treatments, injuries, and the like.

New funding would be paid for through an increase of the federal tax on cigarettes.

President Bush opposes the reauthorization of the children's insurance program, saying the successful low-cost insurance program entices people away from expensive private insurance.

Bush insists that the problem of inadequate access to health care because of the lack of insurance for children isn't as bad as most people say. Contrary to the Census Bureau figures, Bush has inaccurately claimed that only 1 million children lack insurance coverage.

Bush has also implied that working families who can't afford insurance don't need anything more than emergency room care. 'I mean, people have access to health care in America,' Bush said earlier this month. 'After all, you just go to an emergency room.'

During the floor debate, Republican opponents of the bill lined up a series of a arguments to support President Bush and kept hammering away at the need to limit funding the children's insurance program and reduce the number children on the program.

Republican Sen. Trent Lott (MS) offered a contradictory point, echoing Bush. The program is so successful in providing access to health care for children that the Senate bill shouldn't pass because it would mean that more people would seek affordable coverage under its provisions. Working families should be forced to buy high-cost private insurance, he appeared to argue.

Republican Sen. Wayne Allard (CO), in an equally contradictory fashion, insisted that the federal government should control the income eligibility requirements to ensure that enrollment in the program be kept low, but then insisted that only states could run the program successfully.

Allard went so far as to accuse states like New York and New Jersey with high costs of living who offer higher income eligibility levels to cover more children of failing 'to play by the rules.'

New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez fired back at this claim as 'a direct attack on children in New Jersey.' He said, 'I didn't think I would have come to the Senate and see such a refined focus on the children of anyone's state.'

'I thought this was one country,' Menendez fumed.

Menendez pointed out that states with higher costs of living should have flexibility to set income eligibility higher than other states. This shouldn't be left to a federally mandated standard that prevents working families who can't afford high premiums from enrolling in S-CHIP.

Menendez also dismissed alternative proposals such as tax credits to help working families afford insurance.

Neither President Bush's tax credit plan nor any Republican proposal offers enough of a credit to cover the full cost of adequate family insurance. Nor do such proposals aid in reigning in runaway premiums and medical costs.

Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA) accused opponents of the S-CHIP bill of misleading the public about the goals of the bill. This bill 'lowers the rates of uninsured children in America just like the original children's health insurance bill did. It strengthens the program by targeting funding for our chidlren. And it also gives states the tools they need to do the outreach that is required to get our children enrolled.'

Sen. Casey described it as fiscally sound and touted the bills small business provisions as well.

Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama said the time for out-of-touch ideological debate, which is often filled 'with half-truths and scare-tactics,' is over, and that Senators have a responsibility to get the job done.

'As long as there are 9 million children in the United States of America with no health insurance,' Obama said, 'it is a betrayal of our ideals as Americans. It is not who we are.'

'So let's get serious and solve this problem. Let's reauthorize S-CHIP,' he added.

Obama then saw the successes of S-CHIP and the passage of this bill as an opportunity to take another step toward providing universal health care coverage. So far, Obama stated, the market place hasn't been as successful in providing coverage for these children. If it had there would be no uninsured children.

'We also know that the question of children's health care is tied to the larger question of universal care in this country, because we know that when we cover parents, we also cover children,' Obama stated.

'If we're serious about covering every child, at some point we're going to have to cover every parent as well,' he added.

As to the president's threatened veto, Sen. Obama called on the Senate to be prepared to override the veto. 'I urge my colleagues to stand and fight that veto every which way we can,' he said.

The vote in the Senate is expected this week. A similar bill is expected to pass in the House as well.

President Bush so far has used his veto power twice to block bills that would expand health care research on serious diseases using stem cells and to bring the troops home from Iraq. He is now threatening to veto this children's health insurance funding bill. And the Republican minority is preparing to help him do so.

It is clear that the Republican's ideological driven compulsion to put the free market and profit above all else, no matter how badly it fails to get the job done (e.g. Katrina, health care, environmental policy, etc.), is fully discredited. We need a new direction in Washington and the defeat of Republicans in the elections in 2008 will help us take a step in the right direction.

--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs. Reach him at

| | |