Bipartisan Morals

Today, President Bush again declared that he would veto the current bill to extend S-CHIP, claiming that Democrats were playing politics with the safety of children.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/washington/19cnd-bush.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190320096-gkPq9CwVzHv22GlS8WOFRA

That is far from the truth. The current bill is supported by plenty of Republican Congressmen and women as well, so it's certainly not a partisan issue. In fact, the bill passed the Senate with 68 in favor, because of strong Republican support--enough to override a Presidential veto.

Also, the current bill is asking for $65 billion over six years, which, yes, is $35 billion more than current spending on the program, but is also a $15 billion compromise from what Congress had initially considered asking for.

If S-CHIP is not reauthorized by October 1st, a dozen states will run out of money, and millions of children will lose their health insurance. Two dozen more states will quickly run out of money as time passes. Bush's accusation that the Democrats are playing politics, rather than caring for the children, is hypocritical: The agreement is on the table, right now, to care for millions of our nation's children, and to expand that care to 4 million more than are currently protected. Standing in the way of that because of a trumped-up philosophical divide, isn't just politics, it's dangerous, careless, and callous politics.

Of course, there is one other argument that Bush makes to justify vetoing the S-CHIP reauthorization proposal: that the program was designed to cover only poor children. There are several things that I can think of in response to that, chiefly: Aren't all children equally worth protecting? If a child comes from a middle-class family, but is still without health care, is he any less at risk than a child from a poor family who also lacks health insurance? No--the situations are morally the same.

Second, part of the current health care problem is a symptom of the fact that employer-based health care proposals and systems are insufficient; this fact is coming home hard to millions of middle-class families. Self-employed households do not benefit from employer-based insurance; many business don't offer health insurance, in order to stay financially viable, despite the draw it would give to potential job applicants. So, middle-class families can no longer afford to pay for health insurance--are they excluded from our health system simply because they're not poor enough?

Finally, Bush himself used to be in favor of re-authorizing and expanding the program, and regardless of the explanation for that, it is entirely possible--and indeed, the point of a democracy--for things to change according to the wishes of the people. Whether or not S-CHIP was founded as a program solely for poor children, the people's representatives are trying to extend and re-authorize a program; threatening a veto on such an issue is simply stomping on the wishes of the public.

The bill enjoys enough of a majority in the Senate that it can override a veto, but not yet in the House.

Please, take two minutes on behalf of millions of children, and place a call to your Congressmen (especially if you have a Republican representative) and urge them to support the re-authorization of S-CHIP.

You can use this toll free number: 1-800-861-5343, which will ask you for your five-digit zip code in order to connect you directly to your Congressman's office. Two minutes of your time can help make a difference in the lives of literally millions of children; please make the call.

Can't We Cover the Kids?

In the interests of helping people find information on health care, I want to start by linking to a series of articles and editorials from this summer regarding the battle over S-CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program.

After all, it seems to me that the concept of ensuring healthy children is an issue where compassion easily ought to trump dollars. Nelson Mandela once said that the keenest measure of a society's soul is how it treats its' children. In America, 9 million children go without health insurance, and millions more manage to fall through the cracks.

Here's a Washington Post article regarding Bush's principled promise to veto expanding the S-CHIP program, either to add more funding to cover rising health care costs, or to cover additional children: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/18/AR2007071801434.html?referrer=email

The problem is real, for all the talk of 'free'health care in emergency rooms. Here's a profile of a 12-year-old who died, literally, of a toothache; as Herbert asks, "What’s the sense of being the richest nation on the planet if you can’t even afford to keep your children healthy and alive?" http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/opinion/12herbert.html?hp America's better than that, and we can do far better.

Here's an excellent editorial by Princeton professor Paul Krugman on the matter, pointing out that the argument against expanding S-CHIP relies on casting it as one step down that supposedly terrible road towards universal health care completely misses the substance of the Senate Finance Committee's bipartisan bill. Krugman points out that denying innocent children health insurance is flatly immoral--but there is hope. A Georgetown University poll found that 9 in 10 people, including 83% of self-identified Republicans, support expanding S-CHIP.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/opinion/30krugman.html?th&emc=th

That poll is just one example of why there is hope in this fight: we are decent, moral, conscientous people. We care for one another; all it takes is education to know that not only is health care possible, but we must only make our political will felt to make universal health care a reality.

(I'll post more on S-CHIP's more recent developments later, but I wanted to start by giving you some background.)

--Jordan Bubin '09