Administration Stymies Attempt to Insure Children

The Bush administration is doing its best to prevent states like New York and California from expanding the Children’s Health Insurance Program to encompass children from families above the poverty rate. The rationale is strictly ideological, in that they don’t want the program to substitute for private health coverage, even when private coverage is more expensive and less efficient. For a start, the attempts to stifle attempts by states to expand health care coverage would seem to disrespect subsidiarity. And just look at the restrictions. States must have enrolled at least 95 percent of children in the state below 200 percent of the poverty level, an extremely ambitious target none have met. Even worse, before states are permitted to cover children in families above 250 percent of the poverty level (which is just over $50,000 for a family of four), the child must first be uninsured for a whole year. Family values, indeed.