Republican Opposition to CHIP Expansion

Several key Congressional Republicans, including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have announced that their members will oppose efforts to expand a government health insurance program for children. Sounds pretty callous right.

Republican leaders of the House and Senate on Tuesday attacked proposals that call for a major expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, to be financed with higher tobacco taxes.

“Republicans will fight these proposals,” said the House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio.

In an unexpected turn of events, the top two Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Trent Lott of Mississippi, said they opposed a bipartisan bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved last week and would offer an alternative on the Senate floor.

House Democrats announced their proposals on Tuesday night and estimated that they would provide coverage for five million children who are now uninsured. The Senate bill is expected to cover 3.2 million children.

My goodness, the GOP opposes a bill that woudl insure five million uninsured kids?!!! Why?

Well for one thing, it imposes a government insurance program upon people who may not want one and takes away partial subsidies for Medicare supplemental insurance now enjoyed by a number of senior citizens. Second, it does so by increasing cigarette taxes.

Now I don't smoke and never have. In theory I have no objection to cigarette taxes, but there is a problem. The more taxes you impose on cigarettes the more smokers begin to make an economic calculation about smoking. Hard core smokers will always buy cigarettes, either through addiction or other reasons. But the so-called "social smoker," the person who only smokes occaisionally, usually while in some sort of social situation, will begin to think twice and not buy a pack. The fallacy of imposing higher taxes on cigarettes is that over time, the government will actually lose money. Thus, all these programs funded by tobacco taxes will eventually need new sources of funding. It is simply ludicrous to think that the funds will continue to flow from cigarette taxes. When that funding source dries up, this insurance program expansion will need to be funded some other way, usually through some other tax.

But the expansion of the government run insurance program also lets the adults in these kids lives off the hook. The CHIP, or Children's Health Insurance Program, was initially designed to help cover children of the truly poor in America, so that these youngsters could have access to quality health care their parents would otherwise be unable to afford. The program was desinged to be small and limited in scope. However, Democrats are looking to expand the program, creating a dependency on government that shouldn't be there. Exapnding the program allows parents to shirk their responsibility to provide for their kids.

Actuarily, children are relatively cheap to insure. Their medical care is usually routine examinations and occaisional injuries. Their care is predictable and cheap. Therefore insurance for kids is usually cheap as well. Most of the uninsured in this country are actually working Americans, some of whom opt not to take insurance coverage or work for an employer who doesn't provide insurance. If the government wants to make sure that children have coverage, a better method would be to encourage insurance companies to provide low cost insurance for children that is not dependent upon insurance coverage for the parents. This way parents would be able to obtain low-cost coverage for their children, even if they cannot afford to obtain insurance for themselves.