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Archive for the 'SCHIP' Category
If you're always on defense, eventually you lose. No matter how inept the other side, if they always have the ball, eventually they will cross your goal line.
This is common knowledge among sports fans everywhere. Yet the insight still has not sunk in with Republicans in Washington.
The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was originally a Republican program, designed to provide health insurance to children in near-poor families who do not qualify for Medicaid. Democrats in Congress are now pushing for a huge expansion - one rightly resisted by the White House. Senate Finance Committee Republicans have already caved on an unwise compromise. House Democrats will now see if they can get the GOP to cave some more.
On the surface, the Democratic Party appears to be the party of Santa Claus, rescuing children from the scourge of uninsurance. The reality is quite different. If congressional Democrats get their way, millions of children will have less access to health care than they do today. Surprisingly, the same will be true for many low-income seniors. And the cost will mainly be paid for with highly regressive taxes. It's a scheme only Ebenezer Scrooge could love.
On Christmas Day 2002, Jack Whittaker won the lottery. He won big. At $315 million, he held the largest single winning ticket in the history of American lotteries.
Where did all that money come from? It came disproportionately from people on the bottom end of the income ladder - people who might otherwise have paid the rent, clothed their children or put food on the table for their families. (Whittaker, by the way, is an exception to the general rule; he was already worth $1 million before he bought his lucky ticket.)
As a result, that fateful Christmas Day will be remembered for achieving yet another milestone: An act of government that created more inequality per dollar spent in the shortest amount of time in all of human history.
Who could be against health insurance for children? People who want government to run the whole health care system are counting on there not being very many.
That's why you see a big push to expand SCHIP, the state-run, federally subsidized program to provide health insurance to children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. Since children are the healthiest population age group and child health insurance is the cheapest insurance found anywhere, the theory must be that SCHIP is a lot less expensive than tackling a really serious problem.