Back in the honeymoon days of the Clinton Administration, Hillary championed the universal health care initiative. Never mind that she hadn't been elected, her husband had. She waltzed around Capitol Hill and the Oval Office flexing the muscle of the new kids in town. Her efforts failed miserably, even with Democrats, and the result was an embarrassing defeat for the new President and a blow to her ego.
In 1997, Congress passed the State Children's Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) as a patch to Medicaid benefits. The intent was to provide health coverage to children of families making too much income to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to purchase their own insurance. Understandably, Congress wanted to make sure children had access to preventative health care including immunization vaccinations. Instead of the 100% of poverty level for Medicaid eligibility, SCHIP would cover up to 200%. Like many government programs, SCHIP was set up with a ten year reauthorization date. Technically that means in 2007 Congress must pass legislation to keep it going again or the program would come to an end and the 6.6 million children now covered would be dropped. In practice, that is about as likely as the sun not rising in the morning.
As currently configured, SCHIP is about a $25 billion program over five years. President Bush had proposed growing the program by another $5 billion, or about 20%. Hillary and her universal government health care advocates, however, saw an opportunity and this one was served up on a silver platter. It never gets easier for the more-government crowd to get their way than when it's "for the children." Adding health care to the equation was like cream on top of strawberries.
The Senate and House both pontificated at great length with considerable assistance from the masses that would benefit from more government spending, and by a press that was all to willing to print anything about cold hearted Republicans that hate children, not to mention Bush bashing.
In the end, Hillary and her co-conspirator in the House, Nancy Pelosi, passed a re-authorization of SCHIP that doubled the program over the next five years to $60 billion. Instead of 6.6 million children, their plan would cover 10 million. Rather than a ceiling of 200% percent poverty level, it would allow for up to 400%.
It gets worse. The $35 billion of new spending over five years is accomplished only by budget gimmickry insiders know as a "funding cliff." Spending on SCHIP ramps up to $13.9 billion in 2011 drops by 65% in 2012 to allow the bill to "score" at the $35 billion. So, Congress will get to revisit the program again in 2012 and either pump in buckets more to fund it, or kick millions of kids off insurance. Guess which alternative will happen? This kind of sleight of hand would get you arrested anywhere other than in Washington D.C.
To add to the irony of the whole scheme, the Democrats are going to pay for all this supposedly from an increase of 61 cents on the cigarette tax. The idea of the excise tax on cigarettes was to discourage smoking, but in order to raise enough to pay for SCHIP, the Democrats actually will need a lot of people to keep lighting up to pay the bills. But if current trends continue, and the tax increase happens to discourage ever more people not to smoke, they will have succeeded in adding greatly to the debt. Further, the tobacco tax is one of the most regressive (disproportionately punitive to low income people) of all taxes. So, poor people are going to be taxed at a substantially higher rate to pay for a welfare program for poor people. Got it?
Implied in all the rhetoric is that there is an overwhelming need to provide coverage for the uninsured children. Actually, 60% of the 3.4 million new enrollees already have private insurance coverage that would be displaced by the government program at taxpayer expense. Replacing private insurance plans with big government is exactly what Hillary has in mind. She's pretty careful about what she says, but some in Congress let the cat out of the bag.
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, volunteered that "I think the Children's Health Insurance Program is another step to move toward universal coverage. Everyone realizes that the goal of this legislation moves us a giant step further down the road to nationalizing health care." I wonder what else they want to nationalize?
That was Hillary's objective in 1993, and it is a central part of her campaign to be the next President. In fact, she has introduced legislation that would raise SCHIP eligibility to 400% of poverty, now $82,600 for a family of four, and cover an estimated 71% of all children in America. According to research conducted by the Heritage Foundation, this would result in a weird anomaly, even by Washington standards, of 70,000 families qualifying for SCHIP welfare, but making enough income to be subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) which was establish to sock it to the wealthy. Welcome to Hillary's Collective.
A handful of squeamish Republicans in the House and 18 GOP Senators joined the Democrats in passing this "giant step" to universal coverage. (Allard voted "No", Salazar "Yes"). It's amazing to witness how quickly principled conviction vanishes when concern for re-election rears its ugly head. And, the threats and images of those "he voted against the children" ads were everywhere on the Hill.
Bush isn't running for re-election though, and he kept his promise and vetoed the bill. The Senate has enough votes to override, but as long as the House Republicans hold together, the President's veto will be sustained.
Not withstanding the President's announced willingness to find some reasonable middle ground with Democrat Congressional Leadership even beyond the 20% increase he had recommended for SCHIP, the Democrats went into full demagoguery mode. Pelosi let loose with hyperbole that was a stretch even for her. "President Bush used his cruel veto pen to say, 'I forbid 10 million children from getting the health benefits they deserve.'"
That's a lie, and the Speaker knows it. Congress has passed a Continuing Resolution that extends the existing program through mid-November, and even if there is no new agreement with the White House, she knows there is zero chance that Congress wouldn't pass further continuance legislation. So, the 6.6 million children currently covered are still covered and will continue to be. The only ones denied by Bush's veto were the ones included in her dreams. Pelosi is certainly entitled to her own opinion, but she can't invent her own facts. She just as well include every man, woman, and child in America because that's her objective.
Hillary let fly, too, accusing the President of "stealing" health care from needy kids. Grandstanding for political gain, even if shamelessly in the name of children, is fertile territory for Hillary. She knows that the vast majority of the general public will never make the effort to understand the reality of the SCHIP debate, and that polling suggests a strong advantage for the Democrats on SCHIP. She's frothing at the sound bite campaign opportunities available to her for standing up "for the children" while Bush and those nasty Republicans were "stealing" their health care. And, she is fully aware of the opportunity SCHIP reauthorization presents to advancing the Hillary Collective and universal government health care coverage.
The Democrats have shown no willingness to compromise with Bush on SCHIP. Their plan is to continue to repeatedly bring the issue to the floor to keep the issue alive in the media and whip the public into an election year frenzy. Good government and what's really good for the children doesn't even have a seat at the table in this charade. The stakes are far greater than that. They see it as an opportunity to drive a stake in the heart of free market capitalism, individual rights and empowerment, and personal responsibility. Hillary and Nancy aren't about to miss a chance like this.
Comrade Lenin would be very proud.