George Bush Doesn't Care About Young People

The capacity for conservatives to practice their cruel brand of compassion has ceased to surprise. But President Bush's attempt to punish states trying to provide health coverage to uninsured kids is surprising for its political idiocy.

States are trying to cover as many of the 9 million currently uninsured children as they can with what funds they have, so kids won't die for a lack of regular care.

But Bush's health department just threatened states with "corrective action" if they didn't add insurmountable obstacles for squeezed middle-class families. That could pressure states to kick some kids out of the program.

A new missive to state officials effectively prevents them from covering families that earn more than 250% of the poverty line -- about $43,000 a year, before taxes, for a family of three, or $51,000 a year for a family of four.

An average family health insurance plan costs over $11,000 a year, so if you don't get decent insurance from an employer, paying out of pocket is extremely difficult.

What's bizarre is the timing.

Both houses of Congress have passed bills expanding children's health insurance. Congressional conservatives already tried to include such anti-kid restrictions in those bills, and they failed.

Bush went ahead and decreed the restrictions anyway. That's standard disrespect from Bush for the Constitution and Congress.

But because Bush didn't wait for Congress to pass final legislation as expected next month, nothing is stopping legislators from quickly invalidating Bush's kid crackdown -- possibly with enough support to override a veto.

Furthermore, by announcing an anti-kid policy during the legislative process, Bush is exposing his cruel vision of a country of doesn't take care of its kids, which is not a vision supported by the public.

That weakens his ability to rally support in Congress to sustain a veto.

And regardless of the timing, it doesn't do much for Republicans trying to win elections in 2008.

Blogger reaction today is fierce.

Mother Talkers hits upon the high cost of private insurance:

...the Bush administration sez states must charge co-payments and premiums "that approximate the cost of private coverage" so that there's no incentive for folks to drop their private insurance for SCHIP ... The degree to which these policies are designed to protect private insurers to the exclusion of helping children and families is astonishing. "Family values," anyone? Is is just me, or have the Republicans retired this phrase?

Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that Bush is forcing states to keep eligible kids uninsured for longer before enrolling:

So a kid must be uninsured for a whole year before she or he can be covered by SCHIP. Nevermind what might happen during that year.

Jaw on the ground yet? Mine is.

FireDogLake goes right at the conservative argument:

The Bush Administration and its Republican Congressional allies seek to justify this latest outrage by claiming that SCHIP was meant only to help those children at or below the poverty line. That may have been its original rationale, but so what? There is no public policy reason to limit a children’s health care system that is highly successful, improves public health, is endorsed by governors of both parties, and costs less than private insurance schemes that don’t work as well...

Open KY notes that by forcing a low, uniform income limit, "he's basically stripping from the program all of the flexibility that has been critical to its success."

Ohio Daily Blog does a little first-hand reporting:

This morning I called Amy Nicholls Swanson, Executive Director of Voices for Ohio's Children, and Ericka Thoms, Policy and Planning Associate at the Center for Community Solutions, for their initial reaction to the changes. They both said it is too soon to provide a detailed response ... However, when I asked Swanson if the new procedures seem drastic and punitive she freely agreed. ...

Thoms pointed out that no state has achieved 95% participation, and that the level of SCHIP funding increase supported by the Bush Administration appears to be insufficient for states to afford that level of participation.

She also pointed out that the one year waiting period strikes her as "dangerous." Right now there is a thirty-day turn around period. Asking families to go without health insurance for children for a year means that you could have children who are sick not getting the care that they need.

Buckeye State Blog raps conservatives for screwing kids in both the private and public sectors:

When conservatives talk about privitization or "school choice," they don't really mean a fair fight in which the public sector goes against the private sector under the same terms and conditions. But, hell, at least they concede that the public sector should be considered a legitimate provider for education.

However, somewhere along the way, the conservative movement has taken the attitude that although the private sector can compete with the public sector when it comes to our children's education; it cannot when it comes to their health care.

Yet, instead of letting the public sector feel a need the private sector fails to adequately address, the conservative solution is to deny children help from either sector effectively.

D-Day similarly observes:

Basically what the President is saying here is that the system is working too well. They speak about competition but they don't want S-CHIP to ever compete with private insurance (mainly because it would blow the doors off of it).

The Plank's Ben Crair reminds gives Bush an economics lesson:

...there are some very good reasons states have expanded eligibility over the years--among them, the fact that, relative to incomes, health insurance has simply become a lot more expensive.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, since 1996--the year before SCHIP's creation--the average cost of a premium for a family plan has grown five times as fast as the federal poverty level.

As a result, today you have many more kids in families that find health insurance impossibly expensive, and many families above 200 percent of the poverty level are paying a higher percentage of their income towards health care than were those below 200 percent when the program was created in 1997.

Helping those kids get insurance is precisely why SCHIP was created. Or, to put it more simply, it's the program's initial intent...

David Flores writes: "the hypocrisy of the party of 'family values' has never been so apparent as recently.

Young Philly Politics follows the money:

...no one wants this. No one except politicians bound to serve the interests of the insurance and tobacco lobbies before that of among the most vulnerable citizens.

The Next Hurrah and Progressive States Network sum it up succinctly -- George Bush to American Children: "Drop Dead"

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future