Is President Bush a bad person for vetoing SCHIP, the federal health insurance program for children? "Yes," say a few bloggers I like to read. Jim West takes Bush to task for pumping trillions of dollars into Iraq while vetoing a bill that helps children. And Michael Westmoreland-White encourages his readers to contact their representatives and urge them to override Bush's heartless veto.
The whole debate has been misleading. First, you'd think from the Democratic rhetoric that Bush wants to eliminate the entire program! That's certainly what the Democrats are implying when they shamelessly use kids as their puppets. But Bush actually supports funding SCHIP. Read what he told the Washington Post: "I support the initial intent of the program...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." So Bush supports what the program was designed to do: help low-income families with health insurance. And, according to a July 17 Washington Post article, Bush has proposed $5 billion in additional funding.
Second, the way that the media have emplotted the whole debate is as follows: SCHIP is a bipartisan program, and Bush is just an extremist who wants to appease his conservative base. The Democrats are quick to point out that they have the Republican of Republicans, Senator Orrin Hatch, on their side. And Westmoreland-White emphasizes the Republican support for SCHIP on his blog. He also mentions that the "program was invented largely by Republicans" (probably the same ones Westmoreland-White wanted to throw out in various elections).
But Westmoreland-White includes a nifty record of how all the representatives voted, and the vote is on party lines: most Democrats voted for the SCHIP expansion, and most Republicans voted against it. So much for bipartisanship! And, contrary to Democrats' rhetoric, Orrin Hatch is technically not on their side. Here's another quote from the Washington Post article: "[Republican Senator Charles] Grassley and Hatch, in a joint statement this week, implored the president to rescind his veto threat. They warned that Democrats might seek an expansion of $50 billion or more if there is no compromise." Do you hear what Hatch is saying? These Democrats are such spenders that they'll throw even more money at the program if Bush doesn't seek a compromise! Hatch differs from Bush on strategy. Bush is a fighter, and Hatch is, well, I won't comment.
So what is the debate about? Is Bush just heartless? No, argues Senator Trent Lott in the October 5 Human Events. "He can't know what he's talking about," I can hear liberals saying. Well, he was the Senate majority leader when SCHIP passed, so I think that gives him some authority. According to Lott, SCHIP was originally designed to help the working poor. But something happened. Here's how he tells it:
"As the current Congress approached the new fiscal year, the issue grew into a crisis. Instead of re-authorizing SCHIP with a funding increase to include those children eligible under the intended criteria, the Democratic majority in Congress proposed a broad expansion of SCHIP to include hundreds of thousands of adults as well as upper-income children already covered under private insurance. The price tag is more than double the current program—$35 billion for the expansion alone. In some states, families earning up to $83,000 a year would be eligible for this 'low-income program.'"
Basically, the Democrats want the program to cover more than the working poor. Their version of SCHIP will move America in the direction of socialized medicine.
In general, Republicans support helping people who really need help. I remember the debate over federal school lunch programs in 1994, and a rich Republican official asked on Crossfire why his children should also get a reduced lunch price. Good question. Should everyone be put under cradle-to-grave socialism?
So I'm proud of President Bush for vetoing SCHIP. It's about time that he showed some guts on fiscal responsibility, even if it happens once in a blue moon.