SCHIP, Congress and the Games that Are Played

SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, is typical of the games that are played on the American public by our elected representatives.

It is no surprise that many Senators and Representatives attempt to conceal the truth, fill issues with ambiguities and otherwise try to deceive the voter. No wonder Congress has an 11% approval rating!

There is hardly a citizen in America that does not want children of the poor to receive adequate medical and health care. The SCHIP program was in effect to accomplish just that important and worthy task, but the democratically controlled Congress wanted to expand the program so substantially that the children of many that could afford health care would also be covered. In many cases households with an income in excess of $60,000 per year would be covered. It's hard to believe a family income at that level is poor.

This effort to pass the bill sure sounded like many in Congress were trying to buy votes with the voter's own money. President Bush rightly vetoed the bill, Congress failed to override the veto and now Congress will have to develop a more appropriate bill to protect our nation's poor children.

Perhaps one of the more egregious aspects of the SCHIP bill was the effort by Senators Clinton and Dodd to amend the bill to include help for families of veterans that have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. This amendment which should be a separate bill was folded into the SCHIP in hopes of adding weight to the effort to pass the SCHIP giveaway of taxpayer dollars.

Essentially the amendment extended the rights of a family member to provide comfort and treatment to a wounded soldier to six months without being subjected to the risk of losing their job. Currently a husband, wife, father, mother or other close relative of a wounded service member can take up to three months off from their job to tend to their loved one without fear of losing the source of their livelihood. We owe it to our wounded to do this. While it is hard to believe, there are examples of people being fired while they were tending to the needs of an injured or wounded family member.

Clinton and Dodd secured bipartisan support for their amendment - who would want to labeled as not supporting our troops? A number of Republican Senators co-sponsored this amendment. Clinton and Dodd issued statements and gave speeches in support of SCHIP and how it would help the families of our wounded service members. This would appear to be a blatant obfuscation of the intention of SCHIP. If SCHIP passed Democrats could claim victory for helping poor children by giving away money and if it failed, they could claim Republicans don't support poor children or our troops.

An analysis of the votes of some Republican sponsors of the Clinton-Dodd Amendment revealed that they actually voted against the SCHIP Bill in its' final form. Clinton and Dodd knew that was likely to happen, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to deceive. Now they can both go before veteran groups and claim they tried to help, but Republicans thwarted their attempt. Of course those Republicans that supported the amendment can claim support from veteran groups also. So elected officials from both sides can claim the high ground of caring for our children and our service members while in actuality nothing happened.

The bottom line - Congress once again failed the American people. While the majority of the American citizenry opposed the SCHIP Bill in its' final form, that same majority of Americans recognize the responsibility to provide care for the children of the poor and support for our wounded.