President Vetos Children's Healthcare Insurance.

President Bush, as he promised, vetoed the legislation expanding the State Children’s Healthcare Insurance Program (SCHIP).  This is a program which would have expanded an already in-place program to include more middle-class families.  It would have cost $35 billion over five years. 

In vetoing the legislation, the President said the expansion of the program was just another step toward socialized medicine.  This is flat-out, bald faced lie.  It is not socialized medicine.  Here’s how the program works.  

As SCHIP works right now, the federal government provides money to the states, which then set the rules within their state for paying for healthcare insurance, for the children of poor families.  The healthcare insurance is purchased from a private insurance provider, chosen by the family (not the state, nor the federal government).  The state with funds from the program pays the premium.  The family has control.  The family chooses the insurance provider and is free to change providers if the family elects to do so. 

The legislation vetoed by President Bush would have expanded the program to include more middle-class families, those which make too much money to be eligible for Medicare but cannot afford adequate healthcare insurance.  

Another reason the President gave for vetoing the legislation is that he wants to hold down government spending.  What a change.  For six years he passed on spending that expanded our national dept to record highs.  Where was his fiscal conservatism when his Republican controlled congress passed billions of dollars in their pork-barrel projects?   Does his conservatism only come into play where middle-class children are concerned?  It seems so.

The cost, $35 billion over five years, is a lot of money.  It is about four months of the Iraq war.  Only a little more than the total of the earmarked spending the President signed into law during his first six years in office.   And by the way, this expansion will be fully funded by a cigarette tax.  It will not add one cent to our debt or to the 2008 budget.  

In the long run, this program will save money.  When people don’t have health insurance for their kids, these kids tend to show up at hospital emergency rooms when they are ill.  This is the most expensive and inefficient way to administer healthcare and states often end up paying for the care.  Health insurance gets kids preventive care as well as the treatment when they are ill.  Preventive care is vastly cheaper than treating patients once they become Ill.

There may be enough votes in the senate to override the veto, but the House of Representatives is likely to uphold it.  Our own Congressman Pence has spoken against the SCHIP expansion and will surely vote to uphold the President’s veto.  You can decide where Congressman Pence’s sympathies lie: with middle class families that need health insurance for their kids or with the ultra conservatives who care only about taxes.          

The President has called himself a “compassionate conservative.”  This veto is hardly demonstrates compassion.  As for being a fiscal conservative…. You make the call.    

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