Today's News-Leader editorial (rightly) takes U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt to task [1] for failing to support the Congressional effort to provide health coverage to more children by expanding SCHIP. But the editorial goes wrong in that it suggests Blunt ought to support the measure because it is so very "bipartisan."
There is not a more bipartisan measure making its way through Congress than the reauthorization of SCHIP, a program that sends federal money to the states and allows the states to set many of their own rules for passing on needed health care to mostly poor children who otherwise wouldn't be covered by insurance. The measure has bipartisan support because politicians of both parties are beginning to listen to the repeated refrain they keep hearing from their constituents.
But I keep asking myself --if this SCHIP expansion measure is so bipartisan, why is it that it took a Democratic takeover of Congress for it to happen? The expansion certainly wasn't on the radar in 2005. The answer, of course, is that the SCHIP expansion measure is "bipartisan" only insofar as some Republican members of Congress are supporting it out of fear.
If we waited for today's GOP to expand access to health care, we'd wait quite a while. Democrats have to be in charge before items like kids' health care get on the agenda and moved. It's a simple fact that's borne out by the historical record. When Republicans are in charge, national legislative priorities include giving the president expanded powers to start wars, spy on Americans, and destroy Social Security. Health of children is an afterthought, to the extent it is thought about at all.But reading the paper we get treated to the happy fiction that SCHIP expansion is some lovely illustration of the good which springs from bipartisanship. Maybe that's what it takes for an editorial board to attempt to shame a Congressman like Roy Blunt into the right position, but it misleads us about the true nature of the effort. The SCHIP bill --like every other present day attempt to truly expand access to health care for children-- would have no prospect of advancing through Congress but for Democratic control of the body.
The Springfield News-Leader and its hankering for "bipartisanship" aside, the surest way to shrink the number of Americans without health insurance is to elect Democrats.