Health coverage for U.S. children will pay dividends

Just four years ago, President Bush and the Republican Congress joined with Democrats to champion a program giving prescription drug coverage to senior citizens. It was poorly conceived and mega-expensive, an added entitlement for a group of Americans who already had good medical care. But Bush and Congress insisted that seniors deserved it. Now, however, the president and many of his GOP colleagues oppose extending just a fraction of that good medical care to children. What sort of country lavishes health care on its old but withholds it from its young?

Having squandered a budget surplus on foolish domestic spending, tax cuts and an unnecessary war, Republicans can hardly claim fiscal prudence now. The prescription drug program will cost $534 billion over 10 years. By that standard, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is modest; the bipartisan plan adds $35 billion over five years, for a total of about $60 billion over that period. (The war in Iraq, by the way, costs $2 billion a week -- or about $520 billion over five years.)

Besides, health care for children will bring the country huge returns later, when we baby boomers have retired and need a healthy work force to pay into our Social Security fund. The president has defended his decision to veto a bipartisan plan to expand SCHIP to cover about 4 million more children, up from the 6.6 million currently covered. Started during the Clinton years and funded by both the federal government and the states, SCHIP provides low-cost health insurance to children in working-class families. It represents government at its best -- giving people a hand up, not a handout.

It also acknowledges a reality about the modern American economy: Fewer jobs come with the benefit of health insurance. Globalization has decimated the U.S. industrial base, eliminating many of the jobs that gave working people a decent salary, health insurance for the family and a secure pension. Today, it is easy enough to work a full-time job and still not make enough money to afford health insurance. Countless retail clerks, house painters, child care workers and mechanics work 40 hours a week or more and still don't earn enough money to buy health insurance.

While states differ on their rules, the vast majority of kids covered are in families earning modest incomes. In Georgia, a family of four may earn no more than $48,527. Those families pay premiums of up to $70 a month. Critics of the program have claimed that the wealthy will also be eligible. Under federal regulations, it would be quite difficult for any state to get an exemption allowing it to offer coverage to affluent families.

So why did House Republicans uphold Bush's veto? They're stuck with an old and rigid ideology that doesn't recognize changing times. They're holding the line against something called "socialized medicine," even though the majority of Americans want affordable health insurance. Indeed, a broader social safety net is necessary if Republicans want working folk to continue to support free trade. Fighting against affordable health insurance for working families is a losing strategy for the GOP. Their conservatism shows no compassion -- or common sense.

© 2007, Universal Press Syndicate