President Bush vetoed a bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) on Oct. 3. SCHIP is a federal program that funds health care for children whose parents make too much money to be covered under Medicaid.
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) called it "a stunning lack of compassion." Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said, "This is probably the most inexplicable veto in the history of the country." Politicians trotted out pre-teens who gave touching speeches about how they benefited from federal programs.
The message was clear: Support the SCHIP expansion, or you hate children. The veto was sustained by Congress, but only by 13 votes in the House (the Senate voted to override). Now Congress is sending Bush another version of the SCHIP expansion. He should veto it again and the Republican minority should sustain his veto again.
The revised bill raises taxes on the poor to give free, government-run health care to middle-class children, many of whom already have health care. The SCHIP expansion is paid for with a 61-cent-per-pack increase in cigarette taxes. This disproportionately affects poorer Americans. The poor are more likely to be smokers, and the tax will take a larger percentage of poor smokers' income than that of rich smokers.
Of course, smoking is bad and should be discouraged. The problem is that if you smoke, chances are you have a chemical addiction that isn't going to be broken by a price increase. Instead of cutting down on cigarettes, smokers are likely to start buying less of other things, like food and health care.
Tobacco taxes are also an unstable source of government revenue. The fewer people buying cigarettes, the less money available for children's health care. It creates a truly perverse dynamic: For one group to get healthy the other has to get sicker. It is estimated that we will need 22 million more smokers to pay for the SCHIP expansion.
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the revised bill would give "free" health care to two million children who already have private health care. Why pay for what you can get for free? About 50 percent of the newly enrolled kids, if this bill is passed, will be trading in private health care for public health care. This is simply wasting money and resources that could be spent helping people who don't have health care. The Federal government is providing a solution where there isn't a problem by giving free health care to children who already have health care.
The revised SCHIP bill will increase eligibility to 300 percent of the Federal poverty line (FPL). The 2007 poverty level for the average US Household (four people) is $20,650. In 2006, the Census Bureau determined the mean household income was $48,201.
So, 300 percent of the FPL is much more than the mean household income. The purpose of SCHIP is to cover poor children who just aren't poor enough to be insured by Medicaid. The bill Democrats are pushing through Congress expands coverage to middle-class families, which isn't what SCHIP was designed for. Many of those middle-class families already have health care.
A tax credit that allows poor families to buy their own health care plan could cover uninsured children without crowding out private insurance. Such a tax credit, in addition to renewing the old SCHIP, has been proposed by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.).
It would take two forms: a non-refundable tax credit for taxpaying families and a voucher for families that don't pay enough taxes to secure a credit. It could be paid for by capping the tax exclusion employers get for offering health insurance. It would give health care to the "poor" children that proponents of the SCHIP expansion purportedly want to help.
This plan would also give those families a real choice in what kind of health care their children would get, instead of a one-size-fits-all government-run health care plan. They could use the credit to buy private health care or buy into a government plan. It would also not tax thousands of smokers into poverty. It would empower individuals and encourage them to buy health care directly, instead of through their job.
Americans should have more health care options available to them, not less.
Xander Zebrose is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major.
