Viewpoints

Liberals Mislead the Public on SCHIP

For the second time in a month the liberals in Congress passed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill and once again, President Bush did the right thing and vetoed it. Left-leaning groups around Alabama are already putting pressure on Alabama’s congressional delegation, particularly Rep. Robert Aderholt, to override the president’s second veto.

Here are a few things you should know before you make a call, write a letter or send an email supporting an override vote.

SCHIP was created in 1997 to meet the needs of families with children whose income was too high to qualify for Medicaid coverage, but too low to afford private health insurance. The original program covered families with incomes up to 200 percent above the federal poverty level and provided the means for these families to get health coverage for their children. At 200 percent above the federal poverty level, a family of four earning $41,300 or a family of five earning $48,260 are eligible.

The second version of the bill that President Bush vetoed would raise the threshold to 300 percent above the federal poverty level, meaning that an Alabama family of four earning $61,950 or a family of five earning $72,390 would now be eligible for federal welfare in the form of an insurance entitlement. Such an upward expansion of income eligibility would displace millions of children from private insurance, expand the welfare state to include the middle-class and would move the nation toward socialized medicine.

The bill also repealed a restriction in the current SCHIP program that requires states to first insure 95 percent of eligible children before expanding the program to include adults. Currently, Alabama does not include adults in the program, but 14 other states do.

The second SCHIP bill left the door open for states to include the children of illegal immigrants. The bill gives lip service to excluding illegal aliens but imposes no penalties or sanctions if a person lies about citizenship status.

To cover the whopping $35 billion increase, the Democrat-sponsored bill included a huge tax increase for smokers. But that tax increase alone would not be enough to pay for the SCHIP expansion. In order to fund the increase, Congress would have to come up with a “Marlboro Man Plan” to create another 22 million smokers for the needed revenue or raise taxes somewhere else. Neither idea is good for Americans.

Liberals across the state want you to believe that Alabama children risk losing healthcare coverage if the SCHIP bill is not passed. But even if the stalemate continues and the expanded SCHIP bill does not pass, the current program will continue with the same level of funding. In fact, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s State Health Facts report, there would be zero loss of coverage for Alabama children.

Alabama has never spent all of its SCHIP funding nor has the state been able to get all SCHIP eligible children to enroll in the program. According to the Alabama Medicaid office, there are between 12,000 – 15,000 eligible children who are not enrolled. Yet, Alabama has one of the lowest percentages of uninsured children in the nation ranking behind only Hawaii and Massachusetts.

Liberals are also misleading us when they claim the president and opponents of the massive expansion are against the SCHIP program. The fact is that President Bush and sensible conservatives in Congress have called for passage of SCHIP legislation that will:

- increase funding and maintain the income eligibility at the 200 percent threshold
- require states to insure poor children, not adults  
- provide middle-class parents with a tax credit or voucher when purchasing private health insurance for their children  
- prohibit states from insuring illegal immigrants  
- avoid any tax increase

A bi-partisan alternative bill (H.R. 3888) has been introduced that would maintain the eligibility threshold at 200 percent above the federal poverty level and increase funding by $8.5 billion to cover all eligible children. This proposal would provide parents with assistance to pay the premiums for the purchase of private, personal health insurance coverage for their children like most families have through their work.

The bottom line is this -- the first and second SCHIP bills vetoed by the president are examples of the way liberals use children to advance a broader agenda. Once again, President Bush has done the right thing by vetoing the bill. Alabama congressmen should once again vote to uphold his veto.

Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.

November 9, 2007

 Note:  This column is a copyrighted feature distributed free of charge by the Alabama Policy Institute.  Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and API are properly cited.  For information or comments contact: Gary Palmer, Alabama Policy Institute, 402 Office Park Drive, Suite 300, Birmingham, Alabama 35223, (205) 870-9900, e-mail garyp@alabamapolicy.org. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this column, please email joannl@alabamapolicy.org.