Editorials, Opinion Pieces Examine SCHIP Reauthorization Bill

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 01 Oct 2007 - 6:00 PDT

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Summaries of several recent editorials and opinion pieces that address the debate over legislation to reauthorize and expand SCHIP, as well as related issues, appear below.

Editorials

• Charlotte Observer: The reauthorization of SCHIP "is vital to the welfare of thousands of uninsured children in North Carolina and nine million nationwide," according to an Observer editorial. The editorial states that supporters of the bill "recognize what President Bush stubbornly refuses to -- that a nation as prosperous as ours should not allow children to be without health coverage," which places their health and the "continued prosperity of the entire country" at risk (Charlotte Observer, 9/27).
  
  
• Des Moines Register: "Bush should be ashamed of himself for his repeated threats to veto legislation reauthorizing" SCHIP and "should sign the legislation reauthorizing this successful program when it lands on his desk," according to a Register editorial. "It's difficult to understand the president's continued opposition" because, for "someone who insisted on leaving no child behind in education, he sure seems willing to abandon them on health care," the editorial states (Des Moines Register, 9/27).
  
  
• Macon Telegraph: "Democrats want to expand the program, and so do Republicans" and Bush, a Telegraph editorial states, adding, "If everyone wants to expand SCHIP, what's the problem?" The editorial states, "Somewhere compromise exists," adding, "There should be a mechanism to make sure the program covers poor children, and whatever extra funding SCHIP might receive shouldn't be diluted by families who can afford insurance" (Macon Telegraph, 9/26).
  
  
• San Antonio Express-News: "The Bush administration rightfully wants to have a broader conversation about the role government should play when it comes to health care for Americans," but that debate "shouldn't keep the federal government from extending a hand to keep poor children from falling through the cracks," according to an Express-News editorial. The editorial concludes, "President Bush, please don't let pass an opportunity to do the right thing for both uninsured children and taxpayers" (San Antonio Express-News, 9/25).
  
  
• Springfield Republican: "If a Bush veto prevails, Congress should immediately schedule another vote" on the bill, and, in "the meantime, Bush will continue to lose steam with his argument that an expansion of the program is a step 'down the path to government-run health care for every American,'" according to a Republican editorial. "Without the support of insurers, doctors and hospitals" for his veto, Bush "will sooner or later have to make a choice" about whether he is "for kids or ... against them," the editorial concludes (Springfield Republican, 9/26).
  
  
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "In passing a bill to expand health care coverage for children on Tuesday, the U.S. House did good work" but "probably not good enough," according to a Post-Intelligencer editorial. The editorial states that "partisanship and perfectionism must be set aside to expand children's health care, with or without the president" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/26).
  
  
• Wall Street Journal: "What ought to be shocking" in the SCHIP debate is not that the White House is opposing the legislation, but rather "how many Republicans have surrendered or been accomplices in this latest expansion of government health care," the Journal states in an editorial. According to the Journal, "most of the blame" falls on Senate Republicans, in particular Senate Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and committee member Orrin Hatch (Utah), who "created the façade of 'bipartisanship' by signing off on the Democratic plan, whatever its policy results." The Journal concludes, "Republicans are making the rope that will be used to hang them under HillaryCare II" (Wall Street Journal, 9/28).

Opinion Pieces

• Diane Carman, Denver Post: "When it comes to SCHIP, the human element has been lost in the headlong drive for political advantage," Post columnist Carman writes in an opinion piece. Carman writes, "As with every discussion of health care reform, the problem comes down to people of privilege who are perfectly willing to indulge in socialized medicine for themselves and their families fulminating about the importance of the free market when it comes to the uninsured" (Carman, Denver Post, 9/27).
  
  
• Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), Des Moines Register: "Judging by the $431 billion in tax increases Washington liberals have attempted to put into law since they took the majority last November" -- some of which would fund the proposed expansion of SCHIP -- "one might guess that President Lyndon Baines Johnson is back in charge," King writes in a Register opinion piece. SCHIP is a "chip off the old, socialized-medicine block," he writes, adding, "Socialized health care, or any type of government-run health care, has failed everywhere it has been tried. ... So why would America head into the fire others are fleeing?" (King, Des Moines Register, 9/27).
  
  
• Tom Daschle/John Podesta, Miami Herald: With its opposition to the SCHIP legislation, the Bush administration "appears to have reacted to the clear signs that the nation is on the verge of a national health care debate by trying to 'nip it in the bud,'" but that approach "will backfire," former Senate Majority Leader Daschle (D-S.D.) and former White House Chief of Staff Podesta write in a Herald opinion piece. "Conservatives have instead accelerated the debate in a context in which their ideas will surely lose," and their strategy has "moved the question of how to insure Americans to the forefront," according to Daschle, who is currently a special policy adviser at Alston & Bird, and Podesta, who now heads the Center for American Progress. They conclude that the "fight instigated by the president will make it more likely -- not less -- that the next president and the Congress will debate and deliver on ensuring quality, affordable health coverage for all Americans" (Daschle/Podesta, Miami Herald, 9/28).
  
  
• David Brooks, New York Times: The SCHIP expansion plan "has all sorts of corruptions and dishonesties built in," in part because lawmakers, who "like to talk in the abstract about shared sacrifice," will not simply "go to the American people and say: We need to insure more children, and to do that, we're going to raise broad-based taxes slightly," columnist Brooks writes in a Times opinion piece. Since this "honest and direct" approach is "impermissible," the tax is levied on smokers -- who "are among the most demoralized" and "relatively poor" members of society, according to Brooks. "Nobody is raising a tax on wine consumption or gasoline consumption to pay for this benefit," he notes, adding, "Instead, Congress is taxing the weakest possible group in order to shift benefits to others" (Brooks, New York Times, 9/28).
  
  
• Bill Dickens, Tallahassee Democrat: The bill "is politically irresponsible and economically flawed," and a "basic understanding of economics affirms that the president's concerns are correct" and that the "Democratic-led bill is pure demagogic rhetoric," Dickens, a health economics professor at Florida A&M University, writes in a Democrat opinion piece. Dickens writes, "The president will be excoriated by his critics for vetoing" the bill, but "greater damage will be inflicted on the working poor by proponents of CHIP expansion who put partisan interests above the needs of the working poor" (Dickens, Tallahassee Democrat, 9/27).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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