The Debate over SCHIP: Summarized
In the past few months, there has been more attention on SCHIP and its affect and purpose in America. SCHIP is an acronym for State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is a nationwide children’s health program, targeting children and families who do not have health insurance, but have a good enough income that they do not get Medicaid. Some states even expand SCHIP to help families of children affected by SCHIP, pregnant women, and various other people who have been chosen to get SCHIP benefits. The program was started in 1997, to deal with the growing number of people who do not have health care, and as of last year, SCHIP covered 6.9 million children.
The reason that so much attention has been given to SCHIP lately is because Congress was recently working on passing a bill to renew the SCHIP program, which was set to expire Sept. 30th, increasing the amount of money spent on it from 5 billion dollars yearly, on average, to 12 billion dollars yearly, on average, getting money from a 61¢ tax increase on cigarettes. It would also cover more children, roughly 4 million more, but also not cover adults, aside from pregnant women. However, this plan was also met with some debate in Congress, with studies being made into the impacts of the SCHIP program. Labs found that the growth of SCHIP also damages private health care, due to people dropping out of such coverage to turn to SCHIP, as the Congressional Budget Office researched, because of their lower costs and more benefits are given through it. The Congressional Budget Office also made the estimate that, "for every 100 children who gain coverage as a result of SCHIP, there is a corresponding reduction in private coverage of between 25 and 50 children." Despite all this, Congress passed the bill onto the White House.
As the bill was being debated through Congress, President Bush had already been threatening to veto the SCHIP renewal bill and suggesting instead a 5 billion dollar increase. And the president did just that: veto the SCHIP bill. As the president said, “My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government." This goes back to the studies that showed that more people have started depending on SCHIP rather than private coverage. The president also does not support the increased tax on cigarettes that would have give funding to this bill. Despite pleas from the two Republican senators who worked on making the SCHIP bill proposal, saying that it would give the increase that could never be made for the private health care, and in a way that would cost 15 billion dollars less and be more responsible, as well as be a good way for the president to be seen as a uniter, since both parties in the Senate show support for this bill. The bill was none the less vetoed, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, the SCHIP would now need 19 billion dollars to support the same amount of children, which members of Congress and various other government members do not agree with.
( November 2007 Volume 5, Issue 1 )