Mica, Feeney fail children in SCHIP veto override fight
Thirteen votes short. Thirteen votes away from ensuring health coverage for 10 million low-income children across the United States. Thirteen representatives who willfully bought into the misleading, distortion-filled campaign by the White House, and at least two local representatives who almost certainly know better.
U.S. Reps. John Mica and Tom Feeney have no excuse for their vote Thursday. They've seen the State Children's Health Insurance Program in action, here in Volusia and Flagler counties. Families in their districts were among the first in the nation to benefit from the unique private-public partnership that allows parents to purchase coverage for their children through Healthy Kids, Florida's SCHIP-funded program. They know first-hand that Healthy Kids is not, as Bush mockingly titled it, "government health care." In fact, Healthy Kids participants in Volusia County use the same network (Florida Health Care Plans) chosen by many local employers to provide insurance to their workers. Mica and Feeney know that.
They should also know that the program has widespread support. In a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll of more than 1,000 adults, 72 percent said they favored extending the children's health insurance program.
Yet Mica and Feeney went along with the Republican party line vote to uphold the president's veto of SCHIP coverage -- even though 44 other Republican House members saw through the deception.
Central Floridians deserve the truth. Bush made much of the fact that this program would cover families earning "up to" $82,000 a year (for a family of four). That's misleading. SCHIP was created to provide coverage for children in families earning too much for Medicaid, but not enough to afford their own insurance. Federal block grants are based on the number of children in a state that are between 100 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level -- about $41,200 for a family of four. The program does allow states to spend their own money to cover families earning higher levels, but they don't get extra federal dollars to do so. All the Healthy Kids participants in Florida, and 70 percent of SCHIP participants nationwide, live in households with income below the 200 percent threshold.
The president also blustered about the program encouraging parents to take their children out of private insurance to enroll in government-subsidized coverage. He conveniently failed to mention that many of the SCHIP-funded programs (like the local Healthy Kids program) use the private sector.
Poll ratings suggest that Americans aren't so easily swayed by Bush's rhetoric these days. The veto override failure should be no more than a temporary setback.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: There are early signs that Feeney and Mica, among others, recognize the folly of their position. They're already talking up a spurious "compromise" that would break up successful, highly praised programs like Healthy Kids and divert the money into tax credits for parents to buy individual plans for their children.
Talk about welfare for the rich -- the tax-credit proposal would divert millions of dollars now going to pay for inoculations, checkups and other medical costs into the pockets of insurance companies.
House members should stand firm on the essential principles of SCHIP. Forcing families to seek coverage on their own -- in a market that's already let them down -- makes no sense. Their plan ignores the benefit of networks that give families the benefit of group-policy discounts.
Instead, the House and Senate should perfect the SCHIP program. Federal authorities estimate that nearly 9 million children are eligible for the program but don't have coverage. The original bill would have added 6 million; in the next round, Congress should include enough funding to cover every eligible child. This is no time to back down on children's health -- the best response to the veto is a stronger bill that puts lives over politics.
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