Posted on 10/04/2007 7:46:19 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
President George W. Bush has rekindled the flame of Compassionate Conservativism. He did it for the children. He showed this concern for the future of American youth by vetoing the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) at 10 am this morning.
SCHIP originated in 1997 as a gap insurance program aimed at covering the children of people too poor to afford good insurance, but too wealthy to land in the previous safety net. The program has cost $40 Billion over the last ten years and as of 2006, covered approximately 6.9 Million children nationwide. The program oversees fifty individual state programs which it funds through the Medicare Program, once the state programs meet certain Federal guidelines.
The current bill enjoyed broad popularity in the Senate, passing 68-31. This would involve expanding the program to cover 4 million more children and adding $35 Billion to its cost, over the next five years. Assuming the dollars are base year and uniformly phased, the Senate version of S-CHIP makes the annual cost of the program increase from $4 Billion to $11 Billion. This would increase program costs by 175% on the top line.
The unit cost per child insured also increases dramatically. The original program insured 6.9 million children, at a price of $4 Billion a year, for a unit price per child insured of approximately $580. The Senate program extension would insure roughly 11 Million children at approximately $11 Billion per year, for a cost of $1,000 per child. This is an increase of $420 per child, or a unit cost growth of 72%.
If S-CHIP were a military material development program, it would fall under the prevue of the Nunn-McCurdy Amendment to the 1982 Defense Reauthorization Act. Under this legislation, any unit cost increase of over 15% would require an explanatory Congressional hearing. Any growth above 25% would be termed a “Nunn-McCurdy Breach”, and would trigger an automatic vote on whether to immediately cancel the program.
While I hated what happened to the Republican Party in the 2006 Midterm Elections, I think some of the grief Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist received over profligate spending was condign and righteous. The Bridge to Nowhere, for example, was an egregious and disgusting excess at the taxpayer’s expense.
The Democrats won by promising change and better self-discipline. Passing an S-CHIP program where unit-costs grew by 72% does not represent a change towards fiscal self-discipline. It’s time to call Congressman Schuler and ask him how that deficit clock that he featured on his campaign website is doing. Irresponsibility and wallowing in legislative pork is in no way excused by blithering about it “being for the children.”
President Bush acted wisely and judiciously in rejecting the S-CHIP extension, in its current, gluttonous form. It’s a relief to see that he’s actually willing to veto a bad piece of legislation. A leaner, less wasteful S-CHIP program may be worthy of Presidential signature. However, in vetoing the current fiasco, President Bush showed proper concern. He did it for the children.
This should have come with a MAJOR barf alert.
What, you actually wanted him to sign that bill?
I’m glad he vetoed this bill, but sad that he cited the wrong reason. “Cost effective” is the phony standard of pragmatics, not patriots. The veto should have rested on the fact that the entire social construct - and this bill specifically - are beyond the fed’s constitutional reach.
I don’t think that you actually read the article.
Isn’t this the same bill that includes ILLEGALS? Damn right he should have vetoed it!
Gosh, I wonder how we ever got such a big budget deficit. That somehow reminds me of Nancy Pelosi saying. “But we’re spending it on the children!”
When you expect a pension check or a Social Security payment in the mail some time in the future and get stiffed and told to go pound sand, see if “Cost Effective” is a phony standard of the silly pragmatics? When you get told you won’t be receiving any Social Security because the government went broke buying Bill Gates his Lipitor, see if you still feel like a patriot?
Time to pull out all the stops and put the ever overweight Sally Struthers on a commercial: “will no one think of the children”?!
I hope they do. If GWB can lure them into a shark-jumping exercise on this, the pendulum could start swinging back...
Hey, let’s legalize pot for the children next. If it’s for the children....that makes it okay.
Good idea, tax pot and those .40 ounce beers they sell at the corner mart in every major city in America. I’ll support those TWO NEW taxes, for sure!
I am still waiting for someone to show me one instance where a person, child or otherwise, has been denied medical attention.
Personally, I don’t think the gov’t should be in the insurance business: health, flooding, homes or anything else. If you can’t afford health insurance for your kids, perhaps you shouldn’t have kids. Why should I pay for your kids’ health insurance? I’m tired of the productive members of society footing the bill for the unproductive members.
You know, I’m starting to dislike Children that are not mine, expecting me to pay their cost because others won’t!
“You know, I’m starting to dislike Children that are not mine, expecting me to pay their cost because others won’t!”
Yup you got it. Under SCHIP, your 24 year old can receive gov’t healthcare even if you make $83,000 a year. Meaning, you can overextend yourself on that McMansion, drive a Lexus and have the gov’t pick up the tab for your kid’s health.
Sounds good to me.
fixed it
“People disrupted...anymore children around to feed.”
LOL! Used to tell a former fiance/girlfriend her two year old was the charter member of the Junior Anti-Sex League. I sometimes wondered if the baby monitor was hooked up in reverse. The kid had radar, he’d zoom in for coitus interruptus from the other side of the house at 3 am.
I’ll accept that...
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