Over the course of his seven years in office, President George W. Bush has wielded his veto pen five times: for a bill tying congressional funding to a plan for withdrawal from Iraq, a water resources development bill, and twice vetoing a bill which would have provided federal funding for stem cell research.
The latest and arguably most controversial exercise of his veto power was his Oct. 3 veto of the reauthorization of State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Arguments have been made, most recently on this Op-Ed page last week, that SCHIP amounts to "government-run" healthcare, and is just another step on the terrifying path to socialized medicine. Proponents of these arguments, however, misstate the purpose and substance of SCHIP, as well as overlook the indisputable merits of the program.
SCHIP was enacted as an amendment to the 1997 budget; proposed by a Republican, the program was approved by a margin of 346-85 in the House and 85-15 in the Senate. SCHIP does not create "government-run" health insurance like the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS), where the government directly administers standardized health care.
Rather, SCHIP functions differently depending on the state, but often provides subsidized private insurance to families whose incomes fall within a certain range. Leaving aside the relative merits of the United Kingdom's NHS, the program is certainly a far cry from the screams of "socialized medicine."
Even in its limited form, the program is facing difficulties. Rising health care costs, which now consume 16 percent of the U.S.'s GDP, are quickly exhausting the funding of several states, forcing them to contemplate cutting enrollment. According to the Congressional Research Service, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey face a combined $531 million deficit. The proposed legislation would have funded SCHIP for the next five years and expanded its coverage in certain states at the cost of $35 billion dollars.
The president's "compromise" was to fund SCHIP at slightly expanded levels for the next five years, an increase which would insufficiently compensate for the increased costs of healthcare and which would result in a similar effect: the eventual denial of coverage to thousands of current recipients.
The second rhetorical oversight made by opponents of SCHIP is that the program would be expanded to cover middle-class families who don't economically deserve subsidized coverage. Seldom considered, however, is that middle-class in one state is not necessarily middle-class in another.
The figure cited by Xander Zebrose in his Nov. 6 op-ed submission, "A bad idea: Government-run health care (Kids Edition)," was that the bill would increase eligibility to the standard of 300 percent of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL).
What Zebrose overlooks, however, is that living expenses such as housing and food are significantly higher in the states receiving that level of extended coverage, like New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, to name three states with higher cutoffs for SCHIP enrollment.
Even so, that level of extended coverage is limited to a few select states, as the majority (91.3 percent, according to Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families) of SCHIP recipients are from families with incomes less than 200 percent of the FPL.
Raising the level of income required for SCHIP coverage is an appropriate response in certain states with higher standards of living in response to rising health care costs, not an unjustified, unnecessary expansion of the program to an "undeserving" middle-class.
Zebrose also makes the argument that the continued financing and expansion of SCHIP would encourage people to switch from private insurance to "free" insurance. A 2003 study in Health Affairs, a health policy journal, shows that 72 percent of SCHIP recipients were without insurance prior to their enrollment in SCHIP.
One can also discover, through a simple Internet search, the cost of insurance premiums in certain parts of the country. The cost of private insurance, as I've discovered as an imminent graduate, is extremely high, and when added to the cost of living in certain parts of the country, is almost prohibitively so. Faced with the prospect of buying health insurance or food, many people choose the latter.
The most convincing argument for SCHIP is its success and its purpose. SCHIP is, yes, another government program. And like other government programs, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, it's been effective in improving the lives of untold numbers of Americans. Its success is demonstrated by the overwhelming majority by which it passed both houses of Congress: 360-45 in the House and 68-31 in the Senate.
Polls reported overwhelming support for the reauthorization of SCHIP, as well as for a Congressional override of the President's veto. Opposition to the bill comes from a small segment of conservatives terrified of government spending and bureaucracy. At a time of contentious political discourse, they correctly see it as a first step towards universal health care.
Universal health care, however, is not the boogeyman many make it out to be. As eventual college graduates with an unsure future and employment status, we, of all people, should be especially concerned about the ways in which our medical care will be paid for.
From an economic perspective, programs like SCHIP make sense. Deamonte Driver was a 12-year old boy who died of a brain infection in February 2007. The infection was caused by bacteria which had spread from an untreated cavity to his brain, where even $250,000 worth of medical care could not save him.
The cavity had gone untreated because his family had just lost their coverage through Medicaid and could not afford an $80 tooth extraction. Expanded SCHIP, as well as programs like those proposed by Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, enables families to afford preventative care, which can manage or eliminate costs of treating complications or more serious conditions.
And if opponents of SCHIP want to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility, they should take a look in the mirror. One need only attempt to quantify the astronomic levels of government expansion and pork-barrel spending during the six years of Republican Congress, not to mention the costs of the "war" in Iraq.
According to the Congressional Research Service, America has already spent $610 billion in Iraq, and according to economist and Columbia University Professor Joseph Stiglitz, is currently spending anywhere from $4.4 to $7.1 billion dollars a month.
No matter who you are, pro-war or anti-war, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, the benefits of reauthorizing SCHIP, fiscally and normatively, far outweigh the drawbacks. Determine eligibility by measuring the relative standard of living in a specific state, not according to a nationally averaged FPL.
Lastly, stop denying health care to people who haven't done anything to deserve it except being born into families without enough money to buy it themselves. The private market, whose purpose and skill is making money, shouldn't also be trusted to save lives.
The focus of this legislation, whether it is children, college students or everyday Americans, is irrelevant. Those with lower levels of income deserve health insurance, not as a privilege, but as a basic human right, and at the very least, as an economic necessity. A society is judged on how it takes care of those within it who are least fortunate, not most.
Daniel Scarvalone is a senior majoring in political science.
