Editorial: Shortchanging nation’s kids

Wednesday, April 4, 2007 | 7:19 a.m.

The Bush administration plans to fight Democrats' efforts to expand a program that provides health insurance for low-income children.

The federal Children's Health Insurance Program, also called CHIPS, gives money to states that provide coverage for children in low-income families. The program will expire Sept. 30 unless Congress renews it. Rather than simply renewing the law, Democrats seek to expand the program and triple its funding to $75 billion over the next five years.

President Bush, however, is trying to cut coverage, The New York Times reports. He proposes to reduce payments to states that cover children in families with annual incomes that exceed $41,300, which is twice the federal poverty level. At least 17 states use CHIPS money to provide coverage for children whose families earn more than $41,300, because even that amount is hardly a living wage.

In exchange for taking away children's health coverage, Bush proposes to offer poor families a tax deduction that, he says, they can use to purchase private coverage. It is absurd to think that a family struggling to get by on $40,000 or even $60,000 a year could afford to buy private health coverage, no matter how large the tax deduction.

This is not the first time Bush has sought to cut this program. After Bush proposed similar reductions in 2005, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the president's budget approach an "immoral" one that "turns a blind eye to the poorest among us."

Time is running out for CHIPS, a program that, when coupled with Medicaid, provides health insurance for nearly half the children in the United States. At least 14 states expect to run out of money for coverage before the program's Sept. 30 expiration date. The House and Senate approved $750 million in emergency funding, but the money is attached to a war-spending bill that Bush has promised to veto because it calls for a gradual troop withdrawal.

This is not right. The Children's Health Insurance Program needs to cover more children, not fewer. And its emergency funding should not be tied to a controversial piece of legislation that may not survive. Our children's health care coverage is important enough to stand on its own and to be fully funded.