Future of SCHIP Funding Unsure

Earlier this week, a recent bill passed through Congress that will provide millions of uninsured children with health coverage. It will expand an existing children's health plan program called SCHIP, which has already insured 6 million children since 1997. Funding for this SCHIP extension will come from increasing cigarette taxes.

This, of course, is too good to be true.

President Bush intends to veto this bill, despite the significant bipartisan support. If the bill becomes law, the President fears, health care will be one step closer to becoming some huge government-run bureaucracy, cutting down and devouring consumer choice and market efficiency.

For other opponents, the SCHIP bill does too little. The original SCHIP is designed to help families whose income is too high to qualify for Medicaid, but too low to afford private health insurance. The renewed SCHIP can potentially extend coverage to children from higher income families who don't require government assistance. This will deprive resources from those who really do need the help: lower income families and their children.

These arguments do not stand up to actual results. Many regard the original SCHIP as a success. Millions of children now have coverage which they wouldn't have otherwise. The bill will only add on to the plan's success, insuring up to 10 million children total by 2012. Also, in order for higher income families to qualify, they must submit a waiver, which the administration can easily review and reject if necessary.

But the President's veto is inevitable. Proponents of the bill should not despair for long, however. The death of the SCHIP reauthorization bill will only impassion and move more people toward fixing the nation's troubled health care system.

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