For Our Next Obstruction...

...let's deny kids health insurance!

This time, the obstruction [1] may not come from the Senate conservatives [2], but from Mr. Lame Duck himself, President Bush.

Today, the Senate Finance Committee passed a bipartisan compromise to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program [3], investing an additional $7 billion a year of new tobacco tax revenue to cover 3 [4]to 4 million [5] additional children (out of 9 million that remain uninsured [6]).

The compromise scales back what Democrats initially proposed, which was $10 billion a year. In turn, the bipartisan bill is estimated to only cover half of those kids who are already eligible for SCHIP coverage [7], yet still lack coverage.

And expanding the program still won't bring us comprehensive reform to provide affordable, quality health care coverage for all. [8]

Nevertheless, the compromise would expand coverage to some and be a positive step forward.

And with the large bipartisan committee vote today, a conservative filibuster seems unlikely.

But there's more than one way for conservatives to obstruct progress. Bush has pledged to veto the compromise [9], keeping millions of kids uninsured.

This is not surprising, he has been railing against plans to cover kids for months. [10] Not surprising, just disgusting.

How does Bush rationalize this? [9] He says, "government involvement in health care will lead to less quality care and rationing over time."

But Bush does not propose scrapping SCHIP and replacing it with some so-called free-market approach that would end this terrible government involvement. He simply proposes to underfund the program, denying kids health care. [11]

If he cared about covering the uninsured, he would have done something about it in the last six years.

Instead, he is obstructing the efforts of those who do care.