Will Bush and Congress expand health insurance for children?

A decade ago, in the wake of the unsuccessful Clinton health care reform,, a Republican Congress did agree with President Clinton that we should at least provide health insurance to more children in low-income families. Thus was created SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program. In Arizona, this is administered by AHCCCS and called KidsCare. It allows children in families making up to about $41,000 a year for a family of four to get affordable health insurance. The monthly premiums are never more than $35, and may be less depending on income and the number of children.

On September 30, federal funding for this program ends. The U.S. House and Senate have passed separate bills to reauthorize this program, and President Bush has also called for the program to be reauthorized. So it's a done deal, right? Not exactly. Congressional Democrats want to expand the program to allow families making a little bit more money to buy into SCHIP and to make sure those already eligible know about it, while President Bush actually wants to kick off some of the families who are currently served before he'll let the program continue.

This is another one of those funny areas where Republicans say they don't want to cut a program, but merely reduce the amount of the increase in the program. President Bush, after all, wants $5 billion more over the next five years than the program currently spends. That's an increase, right? Well, not exactly, and no, this isn't Washington double speak. As you all know, health care costs are rising faster than just about everything else out there (except other life necessities like food and energy). Given the increases in health care costs, and the rising number of people who have to turn to public health insurance because their employers no longer cover them, the small increase in funding that President Bush offers does not even cover rising costs for those already on the program. I've seen this as well with child care funding to help low income people transition off of welfare and into work. We know that families with children coming off welfare are 82% more likely to still be employed after two years if they have help paying for their child care. Yet one of President Bush's proposals to "reduce the increase" in child care funding would mean that 300,000 fewer families would be served after five years...a miniscule increase in money, but a big drop in the number of people served. So is it part of an "ownership society," as the President claims, or a "you're-on-your-own-ship society?"