At yesterday’s White House press conference, the president kept things unusually brief, answering questions for 30 minutes, during which he avoided practically anything of substance. It prompted Dana Milbank to speculate as to why Bush even gathered reporters in the first place.
The answer is pretty simple: Bush called a press conference in order to read a lengthy opening statement about S-CHIP. The White House seems to think the president is going to get slammed on this issue, and this was something of a preemptive strike. Unfortunately, it was also breathtakingly dishonest, even by Bush standards.
“In just 10 days the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as S-CHIP, is set to expire. This important program helps children whose families cannot afford private health insurance, but do not qualify for Medicaid to get coverage they need.
“I have strongly supported S-CHIP as a governor, and I have done so as President. My 2008 budget proposed to increase S-CHIP funding by $5 billion over five years. It’s a 20 percent increase over current levels of funding. Unfortunately, instead of working with the administration to enact this funding increase for children’s health, Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know that will be vetoed. One of their leaders has even said such a veto would be, ‘a political victory.’ […]
“In other words, members of Congress are putting health coverage for poor children at risk so they can score political points in Washington. The legislation would raise taxes on working people, and would raise spending by between $35 billion and $50 billion. Their proposal would result in taking a program meant to help poor children and turning it into one that covers children in households with incomes of up to $83,000 a year.”
If you’re looking for honesty in these remarks, you’ll be searching for quite a while. There isn’t any.
In fact, Bush made this strikingly partisan and ideological — nasty liberal Dems want big government to replace private insurance for children, while the sensible conservative president wants to stand up for insurance companies and a private system.
Congressional Republicans can be jaw-droppingly pliant at times, but even they balked at Bush’s dishonest and nonsensical argument on this one.
Republicans reacted angrily yesterday to President Bush’s promise to veto a bill that would renew and expand the popular State Children’s Health Insurance Program, raising the likelihood of significant GOP defections when the package comes to a vote next week. […]
“I’m very, very disappointed,” said Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.). “I’m going to be voting for it.”
The situation is breathtaking. Bush opposes a bipartisan bill on children’s healthcare because it offers too much help to kids who lack insurance. Republican lawmakers want the bill, Republican governors want the bill, American families want the bill, medical professionals want the bill, and congressional Dems are desperate to pass the bill. Bush has not only vowed to veto, he’s arguing that Congress is “putting health coverage for poor children at risk.”
It’s practically the definition of “chutzpah.” Bush pulls con jobs on the nation from time to time, but this one’s a doozy.
Even GOP partisans are calling the president on his lies. First, there was Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
Hatch, who helped negotiate the compromise, said it is flatly untrue that the bill would cover children in households with incomes of as much as $83,000. A recent Urban Institute analysis found that 70 percent of the children who would gain or retain coverage under the Senate bill, which resembles the compromise, are in households with incomes below twice the poverty level, or $41,300 for a family of four.
“We’re talking about kids who basically don’t have coverage,” Hatch said. “I think the president’s had some pretty bad advice on this.”
And then there was Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
[T]he chief Republican sponsor of the bill in the Senate, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, said Mr. Bush “is getting bad information.” He said Mr. Bush’s reference to the $83,000 limit was drawn from a proposal put forth by New York State to receive an exemption from the program’s restrictions, which the administration recently denied.
Mr. Grassley said he appealed to the president directly Thursday morning, telling him that a long-term extension of the current law would leave children uncovered, and that the $5 billion increase in the program the president has proposed is not enough to cover more children.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities went into even more detail.
[T]he overwhelming majority of children who would gain health coverage under the emerging agreement are precisely the low-income children the President says he wants to focus on. A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the SCHIP bill passed by the Senate last month — which the emerging agreement will closely resemble — found that at least 85 percent of the otherwise-uninsured children who would gain coverage under the bill have incomes below states’ current SCHIP eligibility limits. […]
The President also claimed today that the emerging congressional SCHIP agreement is “an incremental step toward the goal of government-run health care for every American.” This, too, is incorrect. Most SCHIP beneficiaries receive coverage through private managed care plans that contract with their state, not through government doctors. The American Medical Association and the trade associations for the private insurance companies and the drug companies — hardly supporters of “government-run” health care — support expanding SCHIP to cover more uninsured low-income children.
There’s no real way to spin this — Bush is lying in the hopes of denying children access to healthcare. So much for compassionate conservatism.
Should Bush veto, there a chance the votes will be there for an override. Asked whether he would vote to override a veto, Orrin Hatch, a staunch conservative, said, “You bet your sweet bippy I will.”