Universal Health Care just keeps getting better - Arghh!

[Pressing-On]

Lord, this just gripes me to no end!!!! Blind people! We were in a position to apply for the CHIP program when our children were young. I refused to do it. I could see it for what it was - pushing into acceptance.

Universal Health Care: There is no need to wait until a new President is elected next year for the great national health care debate. It is underway right now, disguised as a routine extension of a state health care program for poor children -- SCHIP. In fact, this proposal is the thin edge of the wedge to achieve the longtime goal of government-supplied universal health insurance and the suffocation of the private system.

1. The Senate Finance Committee was scheduled to mark up tommorrow, but disagreement over the size of the program and how to pay for it has forced postponement. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) would triple SCHIP's current five-year cost of $25 billion to a level of $75 billion. That would grant federal largesse to an estimated 71 percent of all American children. Children in families making as much as $82,000 a year would become eligible, with states also continuing present coverage of adults under SCHIP, which is currently allowed in 14 states.

2. Democrats here find themselves constrained by their own "PAYGO" rules, because they must find the money to fund the expanded program. Senators of both parties want to raise tobacco taxes, but that well is not bottomless -- existing taxes have already reduced cigarette smoking. House Democrats, led by Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), want to take money from private elements of Medicare instituted by the Bush Administration.

3. A principal sponsor of the $75 billion program is Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), whose sweeping "HillaryCare" failed in 1994. The then-First Lady miniaturized her goals by limiting coverage to poor children in the SCHIP program, and Republicans, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in collaboration with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), accepted SCHIP as a fall-back position at a beginning outlay of $4 billion a year. It was the bargaining chip given President Bill Clinton (D) in return for his signing the Deficit Reduction Act of 1997.

4. SCHIP over the past decade has been a beloved program whose faults were overlooked, much like those of the Head Start school program. The federal government has consistently granted waivers to permit 14 states to cover adults under SCHIP, which now cost $5 billion a year. Minnesota led the way with 92 percent of money spent under the program going to adults.

5. The massive expansion of SCHIP fulfills Clinton's promise of "step by step" advancement toward universal health care. Her proposal to extend SCHIP to families at 400 percent of poverty (or $82,000 annually) has the cooperation of Hatch once again and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Finance Committee's ranking Republican. The Republicans want a mere $30-billion increase, compared with Rockefeller's $50 billion, and that relatively minor dispute caused the postponement of the markup.

6. Stark's scheme of slashing the popular private Medicare program in order to pay for an expanded SCHIP would be a major step toward a government monopoly over all health insurance. Will children become accustomed to Washington's taking care of them? Will adults drop their children's private insurance? President George W. Bush may soon face the decision of whether or not to veto going into the election year.

Evans-Novak Political Report for 6/27.