September 13, 2007 10:48AM # A First Step toward Stopping the Growth of Government Health Programs By Cato Editors --- SHARE The debate over expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program is divorced from the reality of who truly needs assistance and the forces that are making health insurance increasingly unaffordable. In “[Sinking SCHIP: A First Step toward Stopping the Growth of Government Health Programs](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8697),” Cato scholar [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/cannon.html) concludes, “Rather than expand SCHIP, Congress should (1) make private health insurance more affordable by allowing consumers and employers to purchase less expensive policies from other states, and (2) fold federal Medicaid and SCHIP funding into block grants that no longer encourage states to open taxpayer-financed health care to nonneedy families.” ##### Related Tags [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).