As soon as today, the House of Representatives will vote to override President Bush’s veto of State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-SCHIP) expansion bill. The bill passed earlier this year with help from moderate Republicans – most notably Senator’s Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) in the US Senate.
The concept of the SCHIP was originally to fund health insurance for children in families that earned too much to be Medicaid eligible but were to poor to pay for insurance in the individual market, or they worked in a low-wage position in which employee health benefits were not provided.
The program has been somewhat successful in the expanding health insurance coverage to these groups of people. However, about half of those joining the program were dropping their private coverage in favor of “free government insurance.” In addition, states, Illinois being a chief culprit, were expanding the program to cover adults and moving eligibility beyond the poverty level to 200% and even 300% of the federal poverty level. That can be up to $84,000 in annual income for a family of four.
Moreover, programs like SCHIP are part of the reason why we see businesses dropping health insurance. Why pay for both Medicaid and private insurance for employees when you can simply dump them onto public insurance rolls that you are already financially supporting? (The government is offering the free health care; it makes no sense to me for them to squeal when people take them up on their offer.)
This proposed $60 billion dollar expansion of SCHIP would make this situation worse. Children up to the age of 25 would be eligible as would illegal immigrants – who unlike many on SCHIP aren’t paying taxes. The Wall Street Journal noted that 80,000 families would be both SCHIP eligible and vulnerable to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).
The AMT, as you recall, is targeted at the rich.
For his part, the President has agreed to a $5 billion increase in funding and has offered to go as high as $10 billion in order to reach the 500,000 children who are eligible but not enrolled in SCHIP. The Democrats are refusing to even discuss the matter. Instead, seeking total victory over compromise, they hope to demagogue the issue.
The targets of these scorched earth tactics have been moderate Republicans. Among those considered most likely to flip was Illinois’ own Tim Johnson (R-15). The Champaign-Urbana based Congressman voted against the original bill. However he was seen as among the most vulnerable when it came to his override vote given his record, the make up of his district and Democrat dominated Illinois. The pressure on him to flip has been tremendous. However, the latest word is that he is holding strong.
On Tuesday, Johnson’s office told the AP that Democratic claims that Johnson would flip weren’t true. Johnson’s spokesman Phil Bloom said that, “He’s voting to sustain the veto.”
The Democrats will undoubtedly argue this is against the children, but the reality is that this vote is about moving SCHIP from a block grant to an entitlement program for the middle class. That the bill specifically targets 25 year olds, illegal immigrants and families making $84,000 per year is a powerful rebuttal. Not to mention the other steps that could be taken to solve the problem of uninsured children.
Rep. Tim Johnson, of course, knows much of this. He understands that this expansion is bad policy and that the politics, no matter what the MSM is saying, doesn’t necessarily cut against him. And if the Democrats can’t pick him off, it’s unlikely they will override the veto.
Score 1 for Tim Johnson.
Greg Blankenship (greg@illinoispolicyinstitute.org) is President of the Illinois Policy Institute in Springfield.
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