Don't let the SCHIP fall to politics

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

By Richard Anderson

The U.S. Senate this week is due to vote to renew SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health insurance to children from lower income families. From everything I’ve heard, this is an excellent program, insuring about 6 million children nationwide.

But passage seems to be getting hung up on a Democratic-led proposal to expand it. According to Wyoming’s U.S. Senators, Mike Enzi and John Barrasso,  New Jersey, New York and other states want to increase the income limit for qualifying families to $82,000, and perhaps extend coverage to adults. The price tag on the expanded program is $60 billion for the next five years, according to Sens. Enzi and Barrasso, up from $40 billion.

As Sen. Barrasso wrote in a guest op in our Letters column, “In my opinion, the hard-working taxpayers of Wyoming shouldn’t be subsidizing the health insurance for a family of four in New York making over $80,000 a year.”

These are legitimate concerns and should not be dismissed without debate. The current proposal before the Senate does indeed amount to an expansion of the program. “State Children’s Health Insurance Program” is a fairly unambiguous name for a government initiative – it’s for children, right? And my initial reaction is that $82,000 ought to be enought to make ends meet.

On the other hand, my little family of three makes a little more than $40,000, and while we do purchase health insurance, the annual bill is well in excess of 10 percent of our income. That seems like a lot for nonsmokers in generally good health. I don’t have to stretch my imagination to envision a scenario in which a family making $80,000 a year would feel stretched and stressed, with health insurance costs threatening to break the bank.

As for Wyoming taxpayers paying for health insurance for New York and New Jersey, isn’t that what the “united” in “United States” implies? That we all stand together to work for a greater good? What greater domestic good could there be than providing quality health for those in need? How about we all stand together to provide quality health care for EVERYONE?

Sens. Barrasso and Enzi acknowledge we are in a health care crisis. There are about 45 million uninsured citizens in America today, and the number will increase. Solving this crisis is going to take ingenuity, cooperation, unity and lots of money. SCHIP is a program that has worked in the past and would continue to work for even more people.

I say expand it, and let this expansion be the first of many as we surmount what we all agree is a crisis.
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Don't let the SCHIP fall to politics | Planet JH News Article: Editorial

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