Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Should President Bush veto the new SCHIP bill that the senate just passed?

President George W. Bush threatened to veto the SCHIP program found on BBC NEWS

On September 28, 2007, the senate passed a bill "State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)". This bill is facing a veto from Bush. “Mr. Bush has threatened to veto the bill which he argues takes the program beyond its original purpose of insuring children from low-income families.” However, this renewed bill will focus on the higher income households; the majority of the senate (mostly democrats) are in support of that.
The supporters of this renewal of the bill said that “the extra money would come from raising taxes on tobacco products, including tax on a packet of cigarettes rising by 61 cents to $1 and that the extra funding would increase enrolment from the current 6.6 million children to 10 million, and dramatically reduce the number of uninsured children in the US, put at about nine million.” So this regulation is going to be based on taxes.
Inspite of that, the democrats are using this regulation to win more votes in their upcoming elections. “The legislation's backers of attempting to win political points ahead of 2008's presidential and congressional elections”. Thus this scheme is mostly beneficial to the middle class. As a result of that, the lower working class will be the ones that it would hurt the most.
With all that been said, the purpose of the SCHIP was to help working families who could not afford private health insurance but who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid - the government health care program for the poor”. The SCHIP hasn’t even covered all the kids who are eligible for it. So why renew it if it is not going to help the main targets?
I totally agree with Bush's plan and I think he should veto this bill because the renewed bill will target the wrong people and it won’t help the people who needs it the most. In other words, with the renewal of this bill, the middle class families would be more likely to drop their private insurance plans, and this will lessen the working lower class families’ chances to SCHIP.
I do hope that President Bush’s idea to veto this bill will go into effect!

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