George Bush and Poor Children

President Bush has chosen political ideology and the corporate health insurance industry over the health and well-being of America's most needy and vulnerable people, our children. In a stealth and cowardly move to avoid the news cycle, at 7:30 PM last Friday the Bush Administration sent states new restrictions for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP); restrictions that will decimate state efforts to ensure children have access to health care.

The administration has repeatedly voiced concerns that some states were expanding their Children's Health Insurance Programs to the point that families were dropping private coverage for public coverage. Its latest directive is designed to prevent such crowding out from occurring.

This includes Oklahoma.

Under Bush's unilateral decree, any state that has already expanded or plans to expand SCHIP beyond 250% of the poverty level, a meager $51,625 for a family of four, will have to meet new guidelines that SCHIP experts and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office say are impossible to meet. States must:

• show they've enrolled 95% of children below 200% of poverty who are eligible for either Medicaid or SCHIP,

• charge premiums that approximate private coverage and impose a one-year waiting period, during which children are uninsured, in order to prevent children from leaving private coverage, and

• show that children's coverage by the private market has not decreased by more than 2% over the past five years.

Thanks to Stateside Dispatch for showing America how George Bush feels about poor children and their families.


"It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." -- Fredrick Douglas