The volume of the language surrounding President Bush’s veto last week of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program has reached deafening levels. From Rudy Giuliani’s applauding the denial of “government-run, socialized medicine,” to Jon Stewart comparing Bush to “Mr. Burns,” a “cartoon villain,” the stirring language from both sides distorts the bill’s merits and faults.
The bill uses a 65-cent-per-pack increase in the cigarette tax to expand a program that insures low-income children for $35 billion over five years. It isn’t likely that Congress will get the votes to overturn the veto and insure the 4 million uninsured children. Bush argued that the bill didn’t sufficiently “focus on the poor children rather than expand the program.” He reasoned that an extension of the program would hurt those already insured. But the S-CHIP will continue to insure the currently covered poorest children and will expand to include slightly less needy children lacking insurance.
Next, Bush contended that “one out of three” children joining the expanded program would “leave private insurance,” which runs counter to his conservative philosophy. Even if his guesstimate turns out to be correct, what does it matter? The families will have rationally chosen the public funding. More children will have better insurance.
Bush proposed an alternative: $15,000 in tax incentives for people who buy private insurance. This alternative doesn’t actually address the problem of uninsured children. Their families, the vast majority of whom have incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line, can’t afford health insurance. An insurance tax incentive won’t make health care affordable for those without insurance. It will provide more money to families who already have insurance.
Bush doesn’t address the central issue: insuring poor children. But valid criticism has emerged against the tax increase on cigarettes. The tax places two desirable incentives in opposition: Either people will stop smoking (good) and kids will lose insurance (bad), or, more likely, the reverse will happen. While those alternatives present problems, each provides better health than the status quo, in which people have less incentive to stop smoking and fewer children have insurance.
Bush has argued that expansion “is an incremental step towards the Democrats’ goal of a government-run health care system.” While looking at the 2008 Democratic platforms, one may think that he is right. But those proposals strive to fix a nationwide problem. Bush has no solution to insure even these 4 million poor children. His inconsistent free market ideology has triumphed over problem solving. He has chosen philosophy over government health care.
Maybe Jon Stewart and Rudy Giuliani were right to use strong language on a serious issue. So I say: Mr. Burns, you villainous cartoon, support the socialized medicine bill.
