Conservatives should beware of policies that simply meet a budget target number without considering whether the underlying policy changes move a program in the right direction. Case in point: the Medicaid blend rate, which would replace the various federal matching rates for different categories of enrollees with one unified federal rate. Yes, those on the left are attacking the blend rate proposal that would set one federal match rate in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). That could lead conservatives to think it must be a good idea. …
In the wake of the White House’s health care summit, reconciliation is still seen as the likely route that congressional leaders and their liberal allies will take to jam Obamacare through Congress. Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama already are using the summit as a public relations vehicle to help fast-track the Senate health care bill through a parliamentary process used primarily for budgetary issues. But beware Plan B — the more “modest” plan. There’s a surer, well-worn path that the Clinton Administration took after the collapse of Hillarycare in …
Media reports that Obamacare is near death are premature. And, if the past is any guide, flat out wrong. It is possible for the Administration to lose politically in pushing its federal takeover of health care, and yet win the policy battle. Consider the fate of Clintoncare bill of the 1990s. This similarity is not at all a good thing for conservatives. In fact, President Clinton, on an incremental basis, quietly and effectively beat the tar out of hapless congressional Republicans on health care. Unnoticed by a public hostile to …
On the campaign trail, then Senator Obama set a course for universal coverage of children through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and opposed an individual mandate. H.R. 3962, as introduced by the House leadership, repeals the SCHIP program in 2014 and includes an individual mandate. Moreover, the bill would send millions of young, healthy adults into Medicaid which will increase the cost of insurance for every one with private coverage because of the cost shift and “crowd out effect” associated with Medicaid.
Speaker Pelosi’s mammoth health legislation, H.R. 3962, includes the largest Medicaid expansion in history, adding as many as 18 million people to the program. Not only will childless adults become eligible for Medicaid for the first time in the history of the program, approximately 5 million children who have been served under the successful and popular State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) will also be transferred into Medicaid. Speaker Pelosi’s bill preempts the decisions previously made by the elected women and men in state capitols. For more than 10 years, …
Now that the Baucus Plan has been introduced as actual legislative language, it is clear more time is necessary to have a full understanding of the massive 1,500 page bill. As members get the opportunity to read the bill, more problems are likely to emerge on a daily basis. For example, the Baucus Plan either puts states into fiscal jeopardy or provides another budget gimmick to avoid paying the full cost of the legislation through the treatment of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The SCHIP provisions have significant …
Speaking to a celebrity studded fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Beverly Hills last night, President Barack Obama humbly proclaimed he “would put these first four months up against any prior administration since FDR.” Actually, let’s do that. Since taking office, President Obama has: Continued to fast-track government control of health care with a $33 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) which isn’t even limited to children and only worsened our nation’s health spending problem. Pushed through a $787 billion stimulus bill that essentially federalized …
It took President Barack Obama all of 15 days to break one of his most fundamental campaign promises. Even in these fast-paced times, that has got to be a record. On Wednesday, February 4, President Obama proudly signed into law a huge increase in the federal tobacco excise tax. The tax is intended to fund part of the expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). In promoting and signing this bill, President Obama confirmed what he had long denied, that he is after all just another tax and …
State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is the federal-state welfare program to provide health insurance for poor children. The House recently passed a major expansion of SCHIP, which is now under consideration in the Senate. Most of the controversy surrounding this expansion has been related to eligibility. Nobody opposes health care for poor children, but the House has removed two critical requirements. First, they removed the requirement to be poor. Second, they removed the requirement to be a child. That’s right – the bill allows states to raise the income …
Efforts in Congress to fast-track passage of an economic stimulus package and expansion of the children’s health care program, if successful, would give liberals a big down payment on nationalizing health care. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) has stated as much. America already was on a fast track toward the tipping point in health care — that point where the federal government will control more spending on personal health than the private sector does. Today, as this chart shows, government controls 46 percent of such spending; its share is …
