SCHIP attempt #2

A new version of the SCHIP (States Child Health Insurance Program) is coming through the House, with a few compromise positions. Most importantly, it explicitly excludes illegal immigrants by requiring rigorous checks of Social Security numbers and it excludes childless adults. The real problem, though, is that it is still extending coverage into the middle class for individuals who largely already have health insurance and is being paid for primarily through a ridiculously regressive tax.

A better way to handle the uninsured is to subsidize private insurance purchases with a combination of the existing SCHIP money and money raised through insurance assessments and taxes on medical service providers. The private insurance would be base-line coverage which concentrates on preventative care and catastrophic care. In order for the market-based options in it to work best, the individual obtaining the coverage would have to be required to spend a percentage of his or her own income to offset costs.

This would do a few things:

1) The individuals who are benefiting from the care (the citizens and the insurance companies and hospitals who will no longer have to pay for emergency rooms used as primary care) will be the ones paying for it.

2) It will allow everyone the opportunity to purchase preventative and catastrophic care coverage at a reasonable rate.

3) It will contain the ability for individuals to shop around, and incentives for them to use less expensive coverage in order to save their own money.

4) It will protect the current high quality care that the 85% of Americans who have insurance currently enjoy.

House to Test Revised Kids' Health Bill
House Ready to Retest Bush's Veto Clout on Children's Health Bill
ABC News

House members are about to learn whether some nips and tucks to a children's health bill will be enough to secure a veto-proof margin against a White House that wants major surgery.

The House planned to vote Thursday on a modestly revised version of a bill that President Bush vetoed Oct. 3. Last week the House fell 13 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto, which had been prompted by Bush's objections to a major expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

The bill's supporters now hope the revisions will attract the seven or more Republicans needed to change the outcome later this fall. GOP leaders urged their colleagues to resist, saying the changes are too minor to justify abandoning Bush on a high-profile issue.

As before, the bill would add $35 billion over five years to the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The program, which now covers 6 million children, would enroll 4 million more. The increase would be paid for with a 61-cent increase in the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes, which Bush opposes.