Editorials, Op-Eds, Letters To The Editor Discuss Bush SCHIP Veto, New Rules

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 05 Oct 2007 - 7:00 PDT

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Summaries of editorials, opinion pieces and letters to the editor discussing new Bush administration rules on SCHIP enrollment and President Bush's veto of compromise legislation to reauthorize and expand the program appear below.

Editorials

• Bergen Record: Not only did Bush veto the expansion of SCHIP, but he also appears "determined to eviscerate" the program through his administration's new enrollment rules, a Record editorial states. "The rules sound like something one of Dickens' crueler characters would dream up," the Record continues. The editorial concludes, "Congress should quickly override any presidential veto and insist the White House drop its draconian stance" (Bergen Record, 10/3).
  
  
• Detroit Free Press: Bush's veto means SCHIP faces an "undeservedly quarrelsome future," but a veto "may inspire some House members to change their minds and avoid the heat of further negotiation," the Free Press writes in an editorial. "The final legislation was a solid compromise," and Bush's "contention" that SCHIP is a "foot in the door for nationalized health care ... looks thin -- and nakedly political -- when most states administer the program through private insurers and managed care companies," according to the Free Press. The editorial concludes, "Surely this country can keep children from suffering even as the political acrimony grows over health care for everyone else" (Detroit Free Press, 10/3).
  
  
• Philadelphia Inquirer: "There was no convincing reason for President Bush to deliver on his long-standing threat of veto for the SCHIP bill -- other than that he hoped to score political points," an Inquirer editorial writes. Although Bush said he vetoed the bill "to force Congress to 'produce a good bill that puts poorer children first,'" his own proposal "offers a $5 billion increase that won't even keep pace with the number of children being added to the uninsured rolls," according to the editorial. The Inquirer concludes that it is "difficult to see how the president's strategy on SCHIP puts any more children first" (Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/4).
  
  
• St. Petersburg Times: "The SCHIP compromise isn't perfect, but it would provide millions of children with health insurance who don't have it now," and Bush's insistence on vetoing it "reflects a stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge rising concerns about an issue that will be at the forefront of the 2008 elections," the Times writes in an editorial. Unless House Republicans succumb to "public pressure to do the right thing," they will "have to join the president in explaining to Americans of modest means why an ideological fight is worth more than the health of their children," the Times concludes (St. Petersburg Times, 10/3).
  
  
• Trenton Times: "Health care for children is the wrong issue on which President Bush should stake his political legacy," according to a Times editorial. The editorial continues, "What is more important? Preventing some higher-income level families from dumping costly private health plans in favor of publicly financed ones or extending health insurance to millions of children whose parents can't afford coverage?" the editorial continues. "In the grand scheme of things, spending $35 billion more to insure health coverage for about 10 million uninsured children is a small price to pay when we are pumping billions more into a war that is paying few dividends," the Times concludes (Trenton Times, 10/3).
  
  
• Wilmington News Journal: Both sides on the SCHIP debate are "maneuvering for political advantage, not for the country's benefit," a News Journal editorial states. According to the News Journal, Bush plans to veto the compromise legislation because the program "costs too much," but he "can be criticized on that point" for allowing "far more expensive programs go by without a squawk." Meanwhile, Democrats' plan to pay for the SCHIP expansion by taxing cigarettes is "a classic dodge of mismatching a program that is likely to expand and grow more expensive over time with a revenue source that is likely to shrink over the same period." The editorial concludes, "SCHIP is only the start of this phase of the Bush-Democrat war. We can expect more. Unfortunately" (Wilmington News Journal, 10/3).

Opinion Pieces

• Michael McGough, Los Angeles Times: The SCHIP "quibbling isn't over the notion that kids are entitled to a special program of their own but about whether the legislation Bush vetoed Wednesday needlessly covers middle-class children with access to private insurance," McGough, the Times' senior editorial writer, writes in an opinion piece. "What makes the SCHIP discussion so interesting is that it marries the two powerful themes: childhood innocence and the notion of the 'deserving poor,'" McGough states. He concludes, "The child may truly be the father of the man -- and so why shouldn't he be the object of our compassion, conservative or otherwise, even after he starts to shave? Wouldn't that be the greatest love of all?" (McGough, Los Angeles Times, 10/4).
  
  
• Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle: "It is as if Washington Dems and Repubs have reached a cynical pact -- an agreement to pass bills which expand the size and scope of government, without ever coming up with an honest way to pay for them," Chronicle columnist Saunders writes in an opinion piece. Saunders continues that "while Bush says he wants to put 'poor kids first,' he'll be in a corner that may force him to accommodate the Democratic leadership's plan to expand SCHIP to the middle class." Saunders concludes, "I, too, believe in providing health care for needy children, but in this country, we've forgotten how to draw a line" (Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4).
  
  
• Gary Andres, Washington Times: SCHIP is "only one element in a much larger, contentious" health care debate, and if Republicans fail to "provide concrete ideas," they "will repeatedly find themselves on defense as next year's election approaches," Andres, vice chair of research and policy at Dutko Worldwide and a former White House senior lobbyist, writes in a Times opinion piece. "Once again, in the liberal welfare paradigm, more money is tantamount to caring," but Republicans must address the question of "how can we make health care more affordable?" Andres writes, noting that polls show reducing the cost of health care is more of a concern among U.S. residents than expanding coverage. He continues, "Whoever seizes the reform mantle by lowering costs will earn big dividends with voters" (Andres, Washington Times, 10/4).
  

Letters to the Editor

• Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Washington Post: The SCHIP bill "does nothing to raise income eligibility levels" in the program and "does not change the original law that requires administration approval for any eligibility level" higher than 200% of the federal poverty level or 50% higher than a "state's Medicaid income cap," as columnist Robert Novak wrote in a Sept. 27 opinion piece, Baucus and Grassley write in a Post letter the editor. According to the authors, the legislation "only sets the level -- a lower level -- of federal matching funds for states that win future approvals," and the bill "not only maintains the ban on new coverage of childless adults but removes childless adults from the program altogether." The authors conclude, "It's fine to have a philosophical debate over the merits" of SCHIP, but "opponents should be intellectually honest about what our bill does and doesn't do" (Baucus/Grassley, Washington Post, 10/4).
  
  
• Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.), Arizona Republic: "Democrats want to move to a government-run health care system," and the SCHIP bill "would be another step in that direction," Kyl writes in a Republic letter to the editor. The legislation "would allow coverage of children from upper-income families earning as much as $82,600 per year and allow states to continue enrolling new adults," he writes, adding, "As a result, for every one new SCHIP enrollee, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates one person now covered by private insurance will move to the government program." According to Kyl, "Congress should pass the SCHIP extension offered by Republicans, which would cover children in low-income families who do not already have insurance" (Kyl, Arizona Republic, 10/4).

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