Health Insurance for Children

The State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a federal program started ten years ago to fund insurance for children whose family income was too great for Medicaid eligibility at the state level and too low to be able to purchase private health care. At that time it was estimated one million children without insurance would be served through this program.

The ten years is up now - it was initially funded for 40 billion for the ten years. In the normal procrastinating style of government they waited until now to address the funding and/or continuation of the Bill.

President George W. Bush offered a bill that provided continuance and a 5 billion increase over the next five years. The Democratic controlled House wanted a 50 Billion increase over the next five years but settled and voted for the Senate version of 35 Billion increase over the next five years. This is what was vetoed by the President who sent signals immediately following the veto that he would be willing to discuss a compromise.

The Democratic leadership, realizing this would be a sensitive issue to the public, jumped on the President's veto and is coordinating a huge public relations effort to get the votes needed for an override of the veto. The Senate passed the original Bill with a veto-proof margin but the House vote was somewhere between 12-19 votes short of overriding a veto.

In the 6th congressional district in Maryland, concentrated efforts are being made to encourage their Republican congressman Roscoe Bartlett to reverse his vote when the vote to override occurs. Some Democrats also pointed out the difference in the health care program he receives as an elected official versus the lack of health care that would exist for children in need if adequate funding is not received for SCHIP. Regardless of how unfair this may appear, Mr. Bartlett’s response has been that he is not going to reverse his vote.

Democrats have planned rallies, coordinated telephone calls and emails directed to the congressmen who they believe may be persuaded to change their vote. Many of these Republican congressmen, including Roscoe Bartlett, are up for reelection next year and their vote on this Bill will be used by their opponents in the election.

Last weekend on the political talk shows, the House and Senate Democratic leadership-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) indicated that if the veto is not overridden (and I don't believe it will be) they will introduce another Bill at lower funding levels and make sure the bipartisan support is there to continue the program. They understand this program must be continued. The resulting Bill will most likely contain a funding increase somewhere between the 5 Billion proposed by the president and the 35 Billion original passed by the House and Senate-probably closer to 20 Billion.

Could a compromise been achieved earlier had the Democratic leadership decided not to make this a wedge issue and stick to the funding levels they had passed?

Perhaps, but with the national and congressional elections occurring next year some believe showing Republicans were not in favor of funding health care to children and the Democrats were in favor was a prudent action to take. Some also believe that if the battle was not engaged, the resulting compromise in funding levels would have been even less.

This is an example of our political system in action. It will be interesting to follow the override vote outcome – scheduled for October 18th and to see the reaction of the public to the vote. Providing health care for children is essential and it is equally important to provide health care for all.

The issue becomes how we "United States" provide health care for our citizens. The current system is not working and Bills such as SCHIP are valid attempts to help fix one aspect in the issuance of health care but it is not a Bill that deals with the overall need to revamp our health care delivery system.

Employers are becoming increasingly burdened with the cost of health care for their employees and many middle class employees can not afford to even opt into an employer provided health care package.

The United States remains the only developed country to not have a nationalized health care system. It is time we elect a president and representatives who will work in a bi-partisan manner with the current private sector health care delivery system to develop and implement an affordable and effective national health care program.