Congress Sails SCHIP Into Icy Waters
- Feb 3, 2009
The Senate has now joined the House in passing a massive expansion to a health insurance program for needy children. What began as a commendable program more than a decade ago to provide health insurance to children whose low-income families do not qualify for Medicaid has been hijacked into something far different—largely at the expense of the families and children it purports to assist.
A reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (H.R. 2, or SCHIP), begun in 1997, sailed through the Senate Jan. 29 with a 66-32 vote. At a cost of some $33 billion over 4 ½ years, the number of children covered by SCHIP will jump from just over 7 million to 11 million. While we support federal health care assistance for needy children whose parents cannot afford it, this SCHIP plan might better be spelled shipwreck for America’s families, the unborn included.
One significant problem with this restructured program is that it will cover many children whose parents already provide them with private health coverage. With the government’s green light, many of these families—some earning as much as $80,000 per year—will drop coverage to feed off government-run coverage. Consequently, the money used by the government to insure these children will be taken away from other families who need help to provide coverage for their children. Such a scenario makes little sense at a time when a large number of children are presently eligible though not even enrolled in the program.
It is a turn of the helm toward the icy waters of socialized medicine. The pork-loaded stimulus plan is evidence of navigating in that direction. Tucked into the House-passed plan, which could ultimately top $1 trillion, are provisions to significantly expand the rolls of Medicaid and to provide $600 million to train enough health care providers, doctors, and nurses for the increased demands on the health care system created by the government’s extension of health insurance to more people.
But perhaps the greatest irony—and tragedy—of the reshaped SCHIP is that it casts overboard the least of the children among us. By nearly a two-to-one margin, the Senate torpedoed a proposed amendment that would make unborn children eligible for health coverage. The amendment, offered by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), would have grafted into law protections put in place by a rule under the Bush administration recognizing unborn children as persons separate from their mother.
The Senate threw more cold water on the unborn a day earlier. Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) offered an amendment to reinstate the Mexico City Policy, which President Obama rescinded in his first week in office. The policy, which would bar the government from sending taxpayer dollars to fund organizations that perform or promote abortions overseas, failed 37-60, largely along party lines.
These actions are two more demonstrations of a growing intent among many in Congress to deny the sacredness of each human life.
We fully support continuing the program that has helped millions of impoverished children receive health coverage. But any extension of the program should follow its original intent—assisting children whose families truly need government support.
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to monitor issues of public policy in America, such as the SCHIP legislation. If you would like to help us continue our efforts, please click here.
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