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SCHIP veto would be a mistake
By Ryan Cunningham
October 1, 2007 | One has to question President Bush's
motives for so insistently vetoing the State Children's
Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. The argument against
his stance seems overwhelming: the $35 billion bill
passed 265-159 in the House and 69-30 in the Senate,
with 18 fellow Republican senators breaking from the
President on the issue.
SCHIP is the only major healthcare bill to pass Congress
this year, which would be a major accomplishment with
enough political capital to fall on both parties for
the upcoming elections in 2008. Unfortunately for the
GOP, Bush, on the behalf of his party, has chosen to
trash those oh-so-needed political assets, and for what?
For standing his ground? For sticking to his guns? What
happened to the "uniter-not-divider" Bush who didn't
veto a single bill in his first term?
But what pushes this particular demonstration to the
brink of absurd are the circumstances surrounding this
political standoff. Somewhere in the fourth dimension,
there is written a rule that no American government
can possibly fail to pass a law with good intentions
for children, even if it's a bad law (see No Child Left
Behind). Once again, we find Bush setting new precedents
for the game politic.
And what is President Bush's reason for vetoing SCHIP?
It might be easy to point at cost as Bush's main justification,
but given a $270 billion deficit scheduled for 2007
and an expensive war abroad that's constantly being
given justification, cost is perhaps a weak link for
explaining why kids shouldn't be insured. Instead, Bush
appeals to a slippery slope argument similar to the
one used for his previous veto against federal funding
for stem cell research. In a nutshell, "If we let liberals
do this, then they're one step closing to doing something
even worse."
If the President explained SCHIP with such logic,
then he would rationalize that the only reason Democrats
support SCHIP is so they can further their plans to
institute federally funded universal healthcare coverage
for all Americans.
Bush has made a political career turning important
issues into less relevant, more divisive issues. This
may be his most shameful attempt yet. SCHIP is not about
easing into full federal healthcare -- in fact, it's
far from it.
We urge President Bush to view this bill as what it
really is: an attempt at fixing an admittedly broken
system and at preventing scenarios in which children
of certain circumstances fall through the cracks.
NW
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