| Roberts' title corrected — he's a Senator --GK
So I'm wondering, why would my representative, Republican Peter Roskam, vote against helping 10 million children gain access to health care. So I thought I'd go look at his website and see if he had a reason to be against a bill that passed with bipartisan support and was overwhelmingly favored by 80% of Americans. Why would he vote against the S-CHIP bill not once, but twice? Here's what I found just to start:
The exorbitant expansion of SCHIP puts America on a path towards greater entitlement spending, undermines private health coverage while reducing benefits of Medicare, all at the expense of the American taxpayer.
Wow. I didn't know S-CHIP was an "exorbitant expansion" and all that other bad stuff.
Problem is, when I did a little more digging, it would seem that Senator Pat Roberts - from the very conservative state of Kansas no less - seems to think that the Republican spin is more than a little out of control:
If you have been watching the debate surrounding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, you have probably noticed that the Washington spin factor is out of control. Given all the commentary, it's a wonder that anyone understands what the bill actually does.
How would Roberts know? Well, as a member of the Senate Finance Committee that actually wrote this bill, I'd defer to his understanding of legislation he had a hand in writing.
Point by point after the jump... |
| So here's why Roskam couldn't support health insurance for children:
Roskam Myth #1: $80,000 Families Qualify:
First, provisions of this legislation allow states to cover a family of four making over $80,000. This unprecedented expansion of national welfare allows families who currently are covered under private insurance plans to receive taxpayer subsidized health care under a program designed to serve low-income children.
Senator Roberts Cites the Facts:
Fact: This bill does not grant SCHIP coverage to children whose families have incomes over $40,000. In fact, the only way a state can cover children in families at higher income levels is if the administration grants approval for the state to do so. This is already current law, and this bill does not change that. This means that those states who are currently covering families with incomes as high as $70,000 are doing so not through congressional approval, but through waivers by the administration. However, this bill for the first time puts tough standards into place to ensure states are truly focusing their programs on low-income children.
Roskam Myth #2: S-CHIP Covers Adults
Secondly, this legislation will do nothing to change the disturbing trend of covering adults as "children" started by Illinois. To date, over 45% of all Illinois SCHIP beneficiaries are adults. Current provisions cover individuals up to 25 years of age as "children" under the definition in this act.
Senator Roberts Cites the Facts:
Fact: This bill only covers children aged 18 or younger. This is current law and this bill does not change that. More importantly, this bill actually fixes the problem created by this administration, which granted waivers to states to cover adults under this program meant for low-income children. Unfortunately, under this administration's watch, we now have 14 states that cover adults under their SCHIP programs. And, many of these adults do not have any children. More disturbing is that several of these states actually spend more of their SCHIP money on adults than they do children. This bill puts an end to this problem.
Roskam Myth #3: S-CHIP Would Undermine Private Health Care
The exorbitant expansion of SCHIP puts America on a path towards greater entitlement spending, undermines private health coverage while reducing benefits of Medicare, all at the expense of the American taxpayer.
Senator Roberts Cites the Facts:
Fact: This bill takes the necessary steps to encourage further private market participation in the SCHIP program. It builds on the current private structure, better allowing states to provide health insurance to children through the private market. Most importantly, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that two-thirds of the children who will gain access to health coverage under this bill are currently uninsured -- not children who will be dropping their private health care to enroll in SCHIP.
As a result of these important provisions, America's Health Insurance Plans -- which represents more than 1,300 private health insurance plans nationwide -- endorsed this bill. This is in addition to every major medical association, state governors and child advocacy groups.
And let's just let Senator Roberts dismiss the remaining myths in one statement:
There are rumors this bill provides free government health care to illegal immigrants, taxpayer funded abortions, subsidized health care to high-income families or health care for "children" up to age 25. These rumors are simply not true -- if they were, I would not have supported the bill.
So basically, Peter Roskam can't support helping children gain access to the health care they need because of a bunch of Republican falsehoods that Senator Roberts, one of the actual authors of the S-CHIP legislation, easily debunks and strongly criticizes as out of control spin.
Or as Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, a national nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the achievement of high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans, puts it:
As key Republican Senators have told the President, it is high time that he and his advisors read the bill," said Pollack. "They either have chosen to remain uninformed, or they are purposely repeating falsehoods. America's children deserve much better than that.
With the Democratic leadership vowing to introduce S-CHIP legislation again in the next two weeks that will cover 10 million more children, this is good advice.
Mr. Roskam: Read the bill this time and stop repeating falsehoods. |
