Bush Chooses Big Business Over Kids' Health

When President Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill on Wednesday, he didn't do it because he's hostile toward poor children. I'm sure Bush has nothing against poor kids, so long as they pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make it on their own, like he did. He didn't even do it becuase he simply doesn't care about poor kids. He did it because he had to. Bush had to stand up for the one thing that he truly believes in: Undying loyalty to big business.

Bush vetoed the expansion of the SCHIP program because he is afraid of it. Or rather, his corporate backers and the goons that run the RNC are afraid of it. SCHIP is the Republican party's greatest nightmare for one simple reason. It works. The program provides health insurance to poor people, mostly kids, at a rate far lower than any private insurance company can (or is willing to.) A look at the numbers tells the story that causes Bush to wake up screaming in the late evening.

Currently, the SCHIP program spends $5.04 Billion per year to provide healthcare to 6 million poor people, mostly children of people who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford private insurance. That means that the program spends $840 per year per person. That's $70 per month.

Wait, let me repeat that. SCHIP, a government healthcare program, provides insurance at the cost of $70 per month per person. That's less than I (a single person) pay for my employer-subsidized insurance.

Under the expanded SCHIP plan, the government would spend roughly $12.04 Billion per year to provide insurance for about 10 million people. Again, mostly children. That works out to $1,204 per person per year, or $100.33 per month.

George Bush said that he vetoed this bill because "it moves our country's health care system in the wrong direction." And he's right. This bill provides healthcare to poor children in a manner that is far more cost-effective than private insurance. As proof of his fealty to the industry, Bush's proposal, as presented in his State Of The Union Address last February was to give tax deductions to people who already have insurance. His plan has no cost benefit over SCHIP. As he said, "For Americans who now purchase health insurance on their own, this proposal would mean a substantial tax savings -- $4,500 for a family of four making $60,000 a year." That works out to $375 per month ($26 less than SCHIP). That $375 isn't providing the family with healthcare, though. It's helping them to pay for private insurance. (Only someone who has never had to buy insurance ever in his life would believe that $375 per month is going to cut it in the private insurance world.)

Ultimately, Bush's plan is simply to push more tax dollars into the pockets of the Insurance industry. (Or as he calls them, "his base.") In his veto statement, Bush said, "our Nation's goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage." At the same time, according to Marilyn Clement, "His proposed $15,000 income tax deduction for middle-class families would jeopardize both Medicare and Social Security..." And that's a never-ending goal of the Republican party.

So what is Bush really doing by vetoing the SCHIP expansion bill? He's trying to keep America from noticing that SCHIP is a federal insurance system that provides healthcare more cost-effectively than private insurance companies can. After all, that's not the sort of thing you want to become public knowledge when there's an election right around the corner.