North Star Writers Group

According to a recent CNN poll, health care ranks third – behind only the war in Iraq and the economy – among issues most pressing to Americans. It is not surprising, then, with the 2008 election hanging overhead, that health care has become a significant newsmaker this summer. Michael Moore’s newest documentary, “Sicko” explores and deplores the current state of American health care. Presidential candidates spew revitalized health care plans on the campaign trail.

Then, this past week, SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) legislation made its way through Congress and made headlines along the way.

Both the House and the Senate approved their own versions of a proposed expansion to SCHIP, but the Senate passed their version with a veto-proof margin of 68-31, to the chagrin of red-scare Republicans who call the bill a harbinger of “socialistic medicine” and to the delight of Democrats in Congress who wanted to do something significant before summer break.

The final task for Congress is to reconcile the two versions of the expansion, and then present a bill to President Bush that will not face the wrath of his veto-signing pen. Democrats are determined to get the bill passed, but the president is armed with his usual defense of, “if you send me a bill I do not approve, then you are prolonging getting funds to, and therefore are against, [insert group here].”

The president wants a $5 billion increase, whereas the Senate bill calls for a hefty $35 billion increase over the next five years, paid for by tobacco taxes. This expansion aims to cover children whose parents make too much to afford Medicaid but not enough for private insurance, and would cover 3.2 million uninsured children. President Bush wants the bill to continue to provide for low-income, but not lower-to-middle class, families. Because, obviously, if it doesn’t help the very poor or the very rich, it might as well be called communism. According to an August 1 Statement of Administration Policy from the White House, "This legislation is a wholesale, unapologetic move to government-run health care for large classes of children.” They say that like it’s a bad thing.

Republicans, including the president, argue that funding health care for our children means a move toward a universal program, which of course means that we become a socialist nation and will eventually experience a total breakdown of American life as we know it. According to presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, “We've got to do it the American way. The American way is not single-payer, government-controlled anything. That's a European way of doing something, that's frankly a socialist way of doing something."

For, as we all know, our neighbors to the north are facing a terrible crisis. A crisis of – gasp! – universal health care, which brings with it such horrors as a longer lifespan than Americans enjoy, and the comfort of knowing that if you are diagnosed with cancer or need emergency medical attention, you will not spend the rest of your life wading in debt. No, we must hold on tight to our American ideals, lest we experience the fate of Canadians!

All advantages of universal health care aside, this bill does not push us any further in that direction, anyway. First, the doctors, hospitals and insurance companies that are part of the program are all private, and will remain private if this SCHIP expansion is passed. Second, we are not talking about a major overhaul of the American health care system (though I hope one day soon we will be), but an addition to an existing program that provides for our children. Those who argue that SCHIP legislation is akin to socialist medicine are either donning their partisan blinders or exaggerating to counterbalance the majority of American citizens who approve of the children’s health care program.

On Capital Hill it might be easy to forget that this is not about politics, but about this country’s children, who likely have no concept of insurance companies, of health care politics, of socialism – but acutely understand health and sickness, happiness and despair.

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