A Veto for the Children
By Repair Man Jack Posted in Policy — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Cross-Posted At: THE MINORITY REPORT
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.