Can't Override Bush for SCHIP

The bill that was proposed to fill the gap in the U.S. health care system, reaching out to middle class families, failed to make an override of President Bush's veto on Thursday. The bill asked for $35 million over the next five years to fill this gap and provide people that live above poverty level and below high income status. This $35 million dollar cost was the part that had Bush sold on a veto. Supposedly, this huge amount of money was supposed to be funded by a 61-cent increase in tobacco tax, but wait.

The House of Representatives lost the two-thirds majority mark (273 to 156) by 13 votes, and this was probably for the good. The amount of money that would be piled onto the Iraq bill is not very logical at this time. Maybe there should be some sort of expansion of the health care system, but we don't need another fall-out like the Social Security program.

Clearly, 61-cents is not a going to be enough over five years to cover a $35 billion dollar budget, especially if the purchase of tobacco will drop as proven in the past. Basically we would be making the same on tobacco tax as before, because less people will be using it after the tax increase. Then, the government will not have enough money to cover this and force them to pull money from other programs or raise taxes, in other words, we would rob Peter to pay Paul.

Lastly, I would recommend to cut back more on social programs that are not providing what they should, and give smaller businesses and companies tax breaks to cover more of these health expenses. Maybe even make a deductible on middle income families to be able to have the resources for their child’s health care. This would accomplish what they are seeking to do as middle class families making as much as $83,000 should be able to manage their money enough to participate in employee benefit programs or purchase supplemental insurance for their children which is done by a lot of America already. We the people should stop and look at what we spend when we make up to $83,300 and be able to support our children.

Source:
CNN
URL - http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/18/schip/index.html
(CNN's Deirdre Walsh and Jessica Yellin contributed to the report at the source.)