Federal CHIP Trouble

There was no small amount of work by Texas Democrats dedicated to making CHIP available to more children this last legislative session. There's a federal version of CHIP, and legislators from both parties have sought to increase the reach and accessibility of that program. Unfortunately (but not unexpectedly), the Bush administration is planning to veto the measure.

The article estimates the number of uninsured children in the United States at somewhere around eight million. The federal CHIP program is set to expire in September, and the main sticking point for the administration seems to be an increase on the tobacco excise tax of 61 cents, raising it from 39 cents to a dollar. They gave the usual line about how "raising taxes" was an "inappropriate" way to fund the program. Never mind that while this bipartisan agreement increases funds for the program by $35 billion over five years, the President's initial budget proposal for the plan only increased funds by $5 billion.

The health of American children would seem like a pretty easy legislative priority for everyone to get behind, and in fact, enough people from both parties are behind this compromise idea that the members of the Senate Finance Committee are confident it will actually make it to veto-able status. I'm guessing that if the Bush administration thought it had no chance of passing they wouldn't be rolling out the veto threats.

It escapes me why Bush wouldn't at least take this opportunity to be likable for a few minutes, and help over 4 million more kids get health coverage. That's what the CBO says this bill would do. I wouldn't normally put "being liked" in the Priorities column for good governance, but when you have so few things going for you, why not insure some poor kids?

PS: Sooner or later, everyone will figure out that the reason some taxes have to be increased is because Republicans keep laying waste to responsible financial plans for governance by cutting taxes and revenues the government can't afford to lose.