Lobbyist join Bush to threaten kids health care; Bush promises to veto S-CHIP

[ProSense]

Short Circuiting S-CHIP

The Nation: White House, Lobbyists Team Up Against Child Health Insurance Program

If ever there was a motherhood-and-apple-pie issue, reauthorizing the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) is it. Yet the Bush administration, right-wing think tanks and health insurance companies have managed to turn a no-brainer into a pitched battle over the direction of healthcare reform, jeopardizing the future of S-CHIP itself. The fight over S-CHIP, which must be renewed by September 30, reflects deep divisions in Washington and shows the difficulties of making improvements in the healthcare system.

By every measure, the ten-year-old program - passed during the Clinton administration as a bipartisan, incremental effort to expand health coverage to millions of poor kids - has been a success. Thanks to S-CHIP, the number of low-income uninsured kids dropped by one-third over the decade, even as the number of uninsured adults went up. Three out of four eligible kids participate, and studies show they receive preventive care and have improved health outcomes and school performance. "It has been the only success story in initiatives to improve healthcare access," says Cindy Mann, who directs Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families.

S-CHIP enjoys broad support among Democratic and Republican governors. Its flexibility allows states to tailor their own programs or build on existing Medicaid arrangements to target children typically in families with incomes of up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level (about $41,300 for a family of four this year). Last year 91 percent of kids on S-CHIP lived in families with incomes at or below that amount. States have stepped in to fill a gap the federal government has refused to address: Nineteen states target or plan to target kids from families whose income is greater than 250 percent of the poverty rate, and some cover pregnant women and parents of eligible kids, a strategy that has proved successful in reaching more children.

What's wrong with this picture? It doesn't square with the right's ideology or the profit goals of the insurance industry, which has the upper hand in Congress. This summer the House and Senate passed bills reauthorizing S-CHIP, but by mid-September it became clear that the House bill, which added 5 million uninsured kids to the rolls and paid for their coverage partly by cutting government overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans, would lose to the more minimal Senate approach. Giving health insurance to more kids instead of overpaying highly profitable insurance companies seemed like a good trade. But the Senate, lobbied all year by the insurance industry, didn't see it that way.

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What's wrong with this picture is that not enough Republicans care enough to send a veto-proof bill to Bush.

Editorial: Kids' health care shouldn't be veto bait

Congress should stand up in defense of SCHIP.

Published: September 25, 2007

In a decade that has produced precious little good news about health care and health insurance, one of the remarkable success stories is a federal-state partnership known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Since its creation in 1997, SCHIP has cut the number of uninsured American children by one-third, generally at low cost and generally in a way that governors could tailor to local needs.

Reauthorizing the program, which expires this fall, should have been easy. Bills emerged in both chambers of Congress with bipartisan backing and more than 30 governors, Republicans and Democrats, wrote letters of support.

So it's a mystery why President Bush has chosen SCHIP for a veto showdown with Congress, a threat he renewed with great vigor just last week. It's important that Sens. Norm Coleman and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, both SCHIP supporters, stick to their guns and let the White House know a veto will be overridden.

When Bush first signaled his qualms about the program last spring, he raised legitimate questions. He said the House version could cause "crowding out" -- encouraging families to drop private insurance to get public coverage -- and said it would extend subsidies to families earning as much as $80,000 a year.

But last month the Congressional Budget Office weighed in with an analysis of the Senate's SCHIP proposal. It said two-thirds of the children who would gain coverage really would otherwise go uninsured -- meaning an extremely low crowd-out rate compared to other government subsidies -- and that 85 percent would fall under existing, tough state definitions of the poor and near-poor. As for the $80,000 number, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa politely said the president simply had his facts wrong.

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Here's a run down on some of the things the bill sent to Bush includes:

· The Senate Bill Provides Coverage For Over 3 Million Uninsured Kids. Currently, 6.6 million children receive their health care coverage through the Children’s Health Insurance Program. In addition to preserving coverage for those children, the bi-partisan Senate bill would also cover an additional 3.2 million kids.

· The Senate Bill Helps States Increase Enrollment. The bill provides $100 million in new grants to fund state outreach and enrollment efforts to reach more children eligible for CHIP and Medicaid. The bill also allocates $49 million for a demonstration project to streamline the enrollment process for low-income children already eligible for coverage.

· The Senate Bill Improves Outreach to Children in Minority and Disadvantaged Communities. In addition to improving outreach to uninsured racial and ethnic minority children, the bi-partisan Senate bill also seeks to increase awareness of the Children’s Health Insurance Program in rural America.

· The Children’s Health Insurance Program Has Played a Vital Role in Covering Minority Children. According to Families USA, the Children’s Health Insurance Program has played a vital role in covering minority children. Approximately 50 percent of African-American and Latino children respectively are covered either by Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

· The Senate Bill Improves Mental Health and Dental Coverage. The measure requires states that offer mental health services to provide coverage for those services on par with medical benefits offered under the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The measure also provides $200 million in grants to states to improve dental coverage for children.

· The Senate Bill is Fiscally Responsible. As with the current Children’s Health Insurance Program, the bi-partisan measure calls for a moderate increase in the tax already imposed on tobacco products. Specifically, the measure creates new revenue from a 61-cent increase in the excise tax on cigarettes, as well as a proportional increase on all other tobacco products.

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Senator Kerry issued this statement on September 20:

09/20/2007

Kerry Says Bush SCHIP Budget Cuts Would Harm Children

WASHINGTON D.C. – Sen. John Kerry issued the following statement this morning in response to President Bush’s remarks on the negotiations surrounding SCHIP reauthorization.

“President Bush today once again threatened to veto health care for poor children. The president hides behind the word “federalization” because his political base opposes doing what is decent and humane. The Senate and the House both approved legislation that would extend health care coverage for poor kids, not cut it back. It would be a refreshing reversal if the president remembered the promise he made in 2004, when he spoke out forcefully in favor of SCHIP. On behalf of families across the country who want him to put kids first, we ask the President not to put their health care coverage last.”

So Bush is going to break a promise (living up to the lie) he made in 2004. Why? Why does Bush (and some Republicans) want to risk childrens' health? Bill Scher explains, in the following link-loaded post, that the Republicans, who are playing politics again with people's lives (this time kids'), are afraid of ceding the health care debate to Democrats.

Bill Scher| BIO

Are You For Good Government or Bad Government?

Posted September 24, 2007 | 12:28 PM (EST)

The battle over the State Children's Health Insurance Program is heating up. This week, Congress is set to pass legislation to cover millions more kids. President Bush plans to veto the bill. There is bipartisan support for expansion in both houses, but at the moment, we can only be sure of a veto-proof margin in the Senate.


President Bush led his Thursday press conference and misinformation has been peddled by the White House and others in the conservative movement all summer, but the effort has failed to turn the public against the bill. And last week, [link:www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0907/Key_Senate_Republican_blasts_Bush_on_SCHIP_veto_threat.html|key Republican senators debunked Bush as well.[br />
Why are Bush and the conservative movement spending so much effort fighting popular bipartisan legislation? What is the SCHIP debate really about?

Two things.

One, of course, is the children themselves: 6 million currently covered under SCHIP (less if conservatives get their way) and 9 million still uninsured.

Without more health insurance, more kids will get sick and die. Period.

Conservatives, being compassionate and all, will swear up and down they don't want more sick kids. They just don't want "big government" to deal with them.

Now, I could give you some defensive arguments to insist SCHIP really isn't "big government." States take the lead in implementing the program. Private insurers generally deliver the coverage.

Which would be true. But that would leave out a critical part of the program's success: our federal government.

We all chip in and fund children's health insurance through our federal government. And we make sure the coverage is decent by regulating the private companies involved.

In return, we all save money and strengthen our economy as kids get more preventative care, instead of waiting for grievous illness to take them to the ER.

This is not theory. While more and more adults have had to go without health insurance, SCHIP has increased the percentage of kids with health insurance.

It is simply a proven success.

And local media has begun introducing their readers to kids who are alive and well thanks to that success.

None of this was happening, or would happen, without government - without us citizens calling on our federal government to invest our taxes and set ground rules to solve this problem.

Having said that, this is not really a debate of government versus no government.

This is a debate between good government and bad government.

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Republicans simply don't know how to govern. For them, government is first and foremost a vehicle for cronyism and lining their pockets, with our money.




edited typo in title

[beachmom]

1. Great post, Prosense. And heartbreaking. K & R n/t

[ProSense]

2. 41 days in Iraq vs. insuring 10 million children.

[ProSense]

3. Kick! n/t