SCHIP and Good Government

Bill Scher is on fire today, speaking about President “Uncompassionate Conservative” Bush’s threat to veto an expansion of the SCHIP program, which provides health insurance for children.

Bush and fellow conservatives are just fine with government subsidies to prop up Medicare Advantage private plans, even though they cost taxpayers more than the traditional Medicare public plan.

They are just fine keeping the children’s insurance program, so long as we underfund it and millions remain uninsured.

As Robert Borosage commented earlier: “faced with a choice of providing children with health care or protecting the profits of private insurance companies, the president chooses the latter.”

Conservatives fear losing the SCHIP debate, because they fear losing the entire health care debate. This fear is unchanged from 1993, when they decided they had to kill universal health care, because “[i]ts passage will give the Democrats a lock on the crucial middle-class vote and revive the reputation of the party.”

Politics over policy. Party over people. Bad government over good government.