The Senate passed the expansion of the S-CHIP program yesterday with a veto-proof majority, 67-29, which sets up a standoff between Congress and the White House over the renewal of the politically sensitive program. The Bush administration favored renewing S-CHIP and even expanding it to a small degree, but the large expansion and the cigarette tax it uses has the White House talking veto. If Bush vetoes it, it may set up a standoff between Bush and Republicans looking towards tough re-election fights:
The Senate, with an overwhelming bipartisan vote yesterday, sent President Bush a $35 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, setting up the biggest domestic policy clash of his presidency and launching a fight that will reverberate into the 2008 elections.
Bush has vowed to veto the measure, but he has faced strong criticism from many fellow Republicans reluctant to turn away from a popular measure that would renew and expand an effective program aimed at low-income children. Democratic leaders, while still as many as two dozen votes short in the House, are campaigning hard for the first veto override of Bush’s presidency.
They secured a veto-proof majority last night in the Senate, with the 67 to 29 tally including “yes” votes from 18 of the 49 Republicans, including some of the president’s most stalwart allies, such as Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (Tex.) and Ted Stevens (Alaska). Democratic leaders are likely to send the measure to the White House next week, giving advocates a few more days to pressure Bush to sign it.
For Republicans, the issue is politically perilous. Every Senate Republican facing a difficult reelection bid bolted from Bush yesterday. Most House Republicans in swing districts abandoned him Tuesday when the House approved the bill 265 to 159. Those Republicans “took the vote that was easiest to explain,” said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).
The legislation that passed the Senate limits the S-CHIP application to households that earn 300% of the federal poverty line. This is an apparent change from earlier versions that had the limit at 400%, and that can be found in Section 110 (a)(8)(a) — except that 110 (a)(8)(b) allows states to make exceptions that could force the government to provide grants to others as well. At 2007 poverty levels, a family of three could make up to $52,000 per year and still be eligible in 2007, and in 2008 that number would likely go to $54,000 or more as the poverty level gets indexed to inflation. In Alaska, that number goes to $64,000.
Even with the reduction in application, this still moves money from primarily poorer people with the sharply regressive cigarette tax and gives it to the middle class. It also undermines the market for private insurance, which has better coverage than the government Medicaid coverage that will crowd out the free-market solutions. The expansion beyond the S-CHIP’s original intent to assist poor children dilutes the program and adds to entitlement programs that are already threatening to bankrupt the nation.
Will the President veto the legislation? He has only issued three vetoes in almost seven years, and two of those protected embryos. He has not vetoed an entitlement expansion, especially not the prescription program for Medicare that he championed. A veto on S-CHIP will put enormous pressure on a handful of Republicans who stuck to fiscal responsibility and who face tough re-election campaigns already in the House. It may also create some pressure on Senators who gave the bill a thin veto-proofing that the House failed to achieve in its bipartisan vote.
I don’t believe the President will veto the bill, although he should. He will probably want to save his political capital for Iraq and the appropriations bills that he will almost certainly veto in the next month or two. Those will require continuing legislation that will create a lot of contentiousness, and the gains from vetoing the S-CHIP expansion will be minimal among his base. His presidency has not been an exemplar of spending control as it is.
If he surprises and follows through on his veto threat, the pressure on Republicans will be enormous. It could set leadership on Republicans from safe seats to reverse their support for the expansion as written, hopefully by presenting the tax-break package that the GOP developed belatedly to combat this version of S-CHIP. That would keep incumbents in tough races from having to explain a vote against the original, while forcing Congress to do the right thing.
UPDATE: Rose asks about illegals using S-CHIP. I know that some have argued that S-CHIP would allow illegals to gain insurance for their children, but the text of the legislation makes it clear that children have to register by Social Security number, and that the state has to verify them with the federal government. Section 301, (dd)(1)(B), states clearly that children whose citizenship or legal residency cannot be verified must be disenrolled for the state to continue receiving S-CHIP grants.
There are good arguments to oppose S-CHIP, but this doesn’t appear to be one of them.
Maybe the Republicans in the Senate and House who suppport S-CHIP’s expansion could explain where the $35 billion will come from. The federal deficit is already huge – this year, next year, every year into the future. Will the government borrow more from Asian central banks? Or will they print more money, driving down the already depreciated greenback?
Unfortunately for Conservatives, a majority Liberal Congress has to win some fights. The Administration is faced with deciding whether the CHIPS legislation, which clearly represents the nose of the camel in the tent for universal health care, is one such battle to fight or give in to.
Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, BUTT BUDDY OF JOHN McCAIN for ALL THINGS LIBERAL, was re-elected in 2006, AND DOES NOT FACE ANY TOUGH RE-ELECTION PROBLEMS, though she is hoping to run for Governor of Texas in the next Governor’s race.
However, if this bill still has the drastic increase in coverage of ILLEGAL ALIENS including 25 yr old ILLEGAL ALIENS as “CHILDREN”, I am sure those in Texas wanting this program ARE NOT IN A MOOD TO “ENTITLE EVEN MORE ILLEGAL ALIENS!
How about it, Capt. Ed … Does this measure STILL have those expansive coverages for ILLEGAL ALIENS earmarked inside this bill??????
Lamont — We spend the amount of money needed to cover this bill every 41 days in Iraq.
Rose — This bill does not cover illegal aliens. You need to actually read it before criticizing it.
Captain — You are probably right. Knowing Bush he’ll have a big signing ceremony and claim it was his idea all along.
Good sense and prudent fiscal management have just benn sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. They are merely protecting their own political fortunes, and not those of the American public whom they swore to serve. This is pork; it is just not in the obvious form of an earmark. They do not deserve their seats. Losing their offices over an issue that they thought that they were using to protect their office would really be the just desert for this pandering.
New York’s expansion of its Medicaid program to the middle class has practically bankrupted the state. More than one third of the entire state budget (more than $44 billion) goes for Medicaid alone.
And two years ago, the N.Y. Times reported that up to 40% of that amount was lost due to waste, fraud and abuse in the program. Governor Spitzer has been unable to reform it, because of attacks from entrenched labor union interests who profit from the waste and abuse.
That’s what we’re in for at the federal level if S-CHIP is expanded to the middle class.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial (sub req’d) on the Schip battle today has a shocking revelation….
Simply on the basis of fiscal responsibility, opposing Schip is a no-brainer. On paper, the bill expands Schip by $35 billion over the next five years, to a total of $60 billion, well beyond the 20% expansion supported by the Bush Administration. To fill this pot of federal dollars, the Democrats will raise the cigarette excise tax by 61 cents.
Naturally, however, there’s a budget sleight-of-hand. Known as a “funding cliff,” the yearly Schip layout increases to $13.9 billion in 2011, then abruptly cuts spending by 65% below current funding levels. This helps “score” the bill as costing only $35 billion over the five-year budget window, but it also means that come 2012 Congress will either have to pass new spending or kick kids off the rolls. The chances of the latter happening are approximately zero, and GOP Senators Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch should be embarrassed for going along with this confidence trick.
NOTE: THE ABOVE IS COPIED FROM A COMMENT AT THE NATIONAL REVIEW ON LINE CORNER BLOG THIS MORNING
S-CHIP Expansion: Will President Bush Veto?
Ed Morrissey doesn’t think that Bush will veto the horrific expansion of the S-CHIP program. We shall soon see. The captain does offer an interesting strategy for the Republican leadership. Be sure to read the whole post. vadkinsQT Monster Blog Home
I hope Bush vetoes it and holds their cowardly feet to the fire. We need to make the RINO’s feel this like we did in the immigration debate.
If anyone votes no for children, I won’t vote for him/her in 2008.
a, the S-CHIP extends the coverage up to the age of 25, according to what I have read. Are they “children?”
I think you have missed the point, that people who have the money to pay for health insurance are being given it virtually for free by the government. And we all know government is wonderful at doing things well.
Instead of smokes, why not put the tax on alcohol? You would get much more back in tax revenue, and it is more widely used. It is also a much worse drug then tobacco. We can all agree to that, right?
“If anyone votes no for children, I won’t vote for him/her in 2008.”
What a facile comment. The children are the ones who will inherit the burdens of all this government largesse.
This is a bad bill and should be vetoed. Every Republican who voted for it is a RINO. This is just the preliminary to universal coverage, and the bankruptcy of our country when it collides with Social Security shortfalls in about 10-years. When Republicans forfeit their principles and act like democrats, they LOSE elections, not the other way around.
Get real Ed.
“At 2007 poverty levels, a family of three could make up to $52,000 per year and still be eligible in 2007, and in 2008 that number would likely go to $54,000 or more as the poverty level gets indexed to inflation. In Alaska, that number goes to $64,000.
I can’t speak for Alaska, but inflation really isn’t a significant factor driving the annual increases in U.S. poverty income thresholds. These income levels would seem to be automatically increased at something very close to a fixed amount each year, without much regard to the actual rate of inflation.
This is actually good news, first because it makes predicting what the future income thresholds for coverage under SCHIP very easy to predict and second, because actual indexing for inflation would see these thresholds increase at exponential rates of growth.
Meanwhile, individual incomes (and government revenues) will continue to follow exponential rates of growth.
The only real question is whether setting the SCHIP maximum income eligibility at 300% of the poverty income threshold is too high.
It would certainly seem to be much less fiscally irresponsible than 400%, but the last I checked, $52,000 is well into the middle class in most parts of the U.S. If the federal government is going to be involved with the funding, shouldn’t it simply cover up to a level good for most states and states with high costs-of-living provide the funding difference if that level is too low for their citizens?
You know, I might die of shock the day a Republican admits that having money doesn’t mean you can buy health insurance in the private market. What planet do you guys live on anyway? S-CHIP good or bad…I don’t really care. I just get tired of seeing the same tired, demonstrably false argument bandied about in opposition to S-CHIP expansion and any other health care proposal that comes along.
When annoyed Republicans stayed home in 2006, they in effect voted for this kind of stuff that the Democratic Congress is going to keep force feeding into the legislative process they now control. Do not expect the MSM to explain the slights of hand or downsides of these initiatives.
In 2008, if we can retake the house, (the Senate is not feasible) you can regain some control of the agenda. Until then, I hope this will be a lesson for people that even an imperfect Republican is probably better than the generic Democrat on the issues of fiscal responsibility and prudent management.
Thank goodness I had a father that thought our insurance was more important than a new house, a second car, a larger boat, booze or drugs. That is why the government feels it has to provide the insurance for free. Too many people have their priorities backward.
first of all this is not about keeping S-CHIP alive – it will always be alive. The REAL subject is how much are we willing to put into it. W wants 5 billion (which the CBO says is not enough) while the Dems and some Reps want 35 billion, which, lets face it, will expand to the middle class, especially now that it’s a front page issue. W is not vetoing SCHIP rather than he is balking at the cost and this is the only way he can do it (one can easily argue he should have talked to his Reps in the House and Senate before it became this bad). Now Pelosi and company are about to overplay the pity field just to gain political points. Because if people really knew the true cost of such health care they just might demand both sides to get their schtuff together
“UPDATE: Rose asks about illegals using S-CHIP. I know that some have argued that S-CHIP would allow illegals to gain insurance for their children, but the text of the legislation makes it clear that children have to register by Social Security number, and that the state has to verify them with the federal government. Section 301, (dd)(1)(B), states clearly that children whose citizenship or legal residency cannot be verified must be disenrolled for the state to continue receiving S-CHIP grants.”
Anyone who believes that will be enforced hasn’t been paying attention these last 10 years. Every single bill that has any largess from the government till will also go to illegals here now and the millions that cross the border over the next few years.
I don’t smoke. Never have; never will. But I think that it is wrong to expect tobacco users to bankroll health insurance for poor children (or even middle class children, under this proposal) by adding an additional tax on tobacco products. What other products will they want to add additional sin taxes on next? Will they tax alcoholic beverages, or snack foods like potato chips and candy, or fatty foods and meat, all to fund some other program “for the children”?
This is the perfect storm of the nanny state and the health nazis combining to infringe on the rights of Americans in the name of the “greater public good.” It’s bad policy, and a slippery slope. “First they came for the smokers, and I said nothing, because I was not a smoker…”
patrick:
You don’t know that. You have no way of knowing that ruling will not be enforced. More and more it seems hardliners are becoming so obsessive about their one and true issue that they see it everywhere, like the bogey man.
You remain purposely clueless terrye. We have had this discussion many times before.
No laws relative to immigration, past, present or in the future will ever be enforced. The only thing that is going to stop illegal immigration is a secured, armed fence.
Every entitlement in this country will be given to every illegal that is here now. I have no problem with that, such is reality. I just don’t want any more to come. Idiots like you pretend not to understand that. So instead you support bullshit laws, like all the prior supposed enforcement bills, allowing millions to flood across the border and call realist like myself hardliners. You and yours resorted to bigotry and ad hominem attacks against the vast majority of Americans who opposed the last immigration bill. I have no use folks such as yourself. You are a fraud and a shill for open borders under the pretense of enforcement.
Every prediction I have made about our immigration policy these last twenty years has come true. Unlike you, I comment online with my full name and a google search can be done of every statement I have ever made in regards to immigration.
Yeah, what Patrick said!
the text of the legislation makes it clear that children have to register by Social Security number, and that the state has to verify them with the federal government. Section 301, (dd)(1)(B), states clearly that children whose citizenship or legal residency cannot be verified must be disenrolled for the state to continue receiving S-CHIP grants.
The _children_ of illegal immigrants born in the US, because they are then considered citizens, can get SSNs. Those children would then be eligible for this program, regardless of the parent’s immigration status.
Of course, that is the case now. The illegal immigration angle probably represents the _least_ important line of argument against this bill. Any expansion of this program will likely increase the “anchor baby” effect, however.