The U.S. House of Representatives should vote to override President Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, when it takes up the issue Oct. 18.
We urge all members of Colorado’s congressional delegation, which has so far divided along party lines on SCHIP, to vote to override this misguided veto. A bill ensuring that poor American children have access to basic health care is not a proper venue for political games.
As Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter said Thursday, “A budget — whether a state budget or a federal budget — should reflect our values. We should value our kids enough to invest in their health care and ensure a healthier future for our state and our nation. The veto undercuts our efforts to provide coverage to the 180,000 Colorado children who lack health insurance.”
Bush’s veto also drew strong criticism from Republicans who had joined in the bipartisan coalition that crafted the SCHIP bill. Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch — nobody’s notion of a flaming liberal — said, “I hope the folks at home raise Cain.”
Hatch also dismissed the president’s claim that the bill would have allowed families earning up to $83,000 a year to qualify for subsidized insurance.
The Utah Republican noted that that could only happen if states applied for a waiver from the federal government allowing them to raise benefits that high — and if the administration granted it.
Only one state, New York, has applied for such a waiver, and Bush — justifiably in our view — denied the request. In general, depending on state guidelines, the program will be limited to families earning up to two or three times the federal poverty line.
SCHIP was started in 1997 with bipartisan backing to insure children in families with incomes too high to receive Medicaid, but without the wealth to afford private insurance. Colorado’s version of the program, Child Health Plan Plus, would have received about $85 million in 2008 under the plan that was vetoed. That expanded funding would have allowed the state to more than double the number of covered children, which was about 53,000 as of July, by adding 57,000 more Colorado children to the rolls.
The cost of this expansion of children’s health care coverage was estimated at about $7 billion a year. The sum would hardly have broken a federal budget that now totals $2.7 trillion. More important, it wouldn’t have added a dime to the federal deficit, because the cost would have been fully covered by a 61-cents-a-pack increase in cigarette taxes.
President Bush, who pushed the federal deficit to staggering levels with his Iraq war spending and also by promoting new entitlement programs such as prescription drug coverage under Medicare, picked the wrong bill to veto in his belated quest to pose as a fiscal conservative. Congress should override the veto.
