President Bush opposed the SCHIP bill, saying that it shifts middle-class families from their private coverage to publicly paid health care. However, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that nearly two-thirds of children served would be otherwise uninsured in 2012. And 84 percent of the 3.8 million uninsured children served by this bill already qualify — there just isn't enough money to cover them. Given the fast-growing rates of uninsured children among families above the poverty line, isn't it smart to increase access? Earlier this year, researchers from that bastion of liberal thinking, Brigham Young University, found that states spend more money when children drop out of SCHIP, because their families increase their use of emergency care services. Once again, however, facts get in the way of a favored conservative story line. The Bush alternative to the SCHIP bill, establishing a new tax deduction for private health insurance, has generated no enthusiasm. It is widely recognized as serving wealthier families and weakening the existing employer-based insurance system. The Democrats may not override the Bush veto in the House, hard though it is to imagine that House Republicans relish following the president into yet another poorly thought-out battle. But it won't be just a partisan ploy if next year Democrats point out that Republicans knowingly opposed a sound compromise bill that addressed a pressing need facing millions of Americans. It will simply be stating the truth. Journalist Margaret Krome served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon.
Margaret Krome writes: Conservatives show small minds on kids' health care
Margaret Krome: Conservatives show small minds on kids' health care
Margaret Krome — 10/17/2007 12:21 pm
My son's health insurance coverage has become dear to me this summer.
Martin went to the emergency room after a major crash in a bike race and was later treated for a nasty staph infection resulting from that visit. He was misdiagnosed and then weeks later correctly diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease. Most recently, he was diagnosed with mononucleosis. Each time he was embarrassed to go in, but at least it didn't cost us a few hundred dollars per visit.
Suppose our family couldn't afford a second diagnosis and treatment for Lyme disease? If left untreated, Lyme disease can have disabling long-term effects: extreme and disabling exhaustion, nerve damage, heart damage and more.
Thankfully, our children have good health insurance. But at least 8 million children, equally deserving, do not.
The last few weeks have shown how low public discourse can get when monied interests are threatened. The State Children's Health Insurance Program bill would extend the program for five years and raise funding levels to allow states to cover more low-income children. This program, known as BadgerCare in Wisconsin, was never intended to serve families poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but rather to help the working poor. Sponsors originally sought $60 billion, but it got whittled down to $50 billion, and finally to $35 billion. Disappointing as those cuts were, budget negotiations are a natural part of crafting legislation.
What's not all right are the vicious attacks on families who have let their personal stories be told, incomes discussed and assets scrutinized. The Frost family of Baltimore, whose 12-year-old son Graeme presented a rebuttal to President Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill, was shredded by the conservative press.
The combined $45,000 income from the mother's job at a medical publishing firm and the father's as a woodworker was ridiculed as impossibly low. The fact that Graeme and his sister attend an expensive private school was gleefully proclaimed, although not the facts that Graeme's scholarship covers all but $500 and his sister's tuition is paid by the state, due to a disability following a car accident. The family is accused of living in a neighborhood with high home values, regardless of the $55,000 the Frosts paid for their home 16 years ago and their sweat equity improvements. Down to the quality of the kitchen countertops, no opportunity to ridicule this family was passed over by conservative story makers.
The point conservatives hoped to make was that SCHIP would help undeserving, middle-class families. The point they really illuminated is the smallness of mind of opponents. President Bush opposed the SCHIP bill, saying that it shifts middle-class families from their private coverage to publicly paid health care. However, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that nearly two-thirds of children served would be otherwise uninsured in 2012. And 84 percent of the 3.8 million uninsured children served by this bill already qualify — there just isn't enough money to cover them.
Given the fast-growing rates of uninsured children among families above the poverty line, isn't it smart to increase access? Earlier this year, researchers from that bastion of liberal thinking, Brigham Young University, found that states spend more money when children drop out of SCHIP, because their families increase their use of emergency care services. Once again, however, facts get in the way of a favored conservative story line.
The Bush alternative to the SCHIP bill, establishing a new tax deduction for private health insurance, has generated no enthusiasm. It is widely recognized as serving wealthier families and weakening the existing employer-based insurance system.
The Democrats may not override the Bush veto in the House, hard though it is to imagine that House Republicans relish following the president into yet another poorly thought-out battle. But it won't be just a partisan ploy if next year Democrats point out that Republicans knowingly opposed a sound compromise bill that addressed a pressing need facing millions of Americans. It will simply be stating the truth.
Margaret Krome of Madison writes a semimonthly column for The Capital Times.
