MediKid

That was the name I gave the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), before it even had a name, 10 years ago this month.

It appeared in a paper I wrote for Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation titled "MediKid: Whose Idea Was This, Anyway?" At the time, I foolishly hoped the paper would head off this Orrin Hatch/Ted Kennedy love-fest. CSEF issued the paper just as the House and Senate were about to go to conference on different versions of the program.

Ten years later, MediKid is about to expire. As Congress and the president are trying to figure out just how much more to spend on this ill-advised program, I thought it would be fun to share a few gems from my 1997 paper:

Congress is about to cast one of its most damaging votes ever against children’s health. Taking a page from the Clinton administration’s playbook, Congress will soon vote to expand government-run health care for children and continue the slow march toward imposing government-run health care on everyone. Instead of wasting over $8 billion on “MediKid” proposals, Congress should help parents protect their children’s health by providing additional tax relief to families...

Congress has debated the issue of uninsured children under the premise that 10 million American children are unable to obtain health coverage — a premise that is utterly false. In fact, fewer than two million children in the U.S. are chronically uninsured.

Acting on this false premise, Congress has designed new government programs to give health coverage to low-income children. Over five years, these programs will waste more than $8 billion duplicating services already provided by the private sector. Worse, MediKid will actually harm children’s health by making parents less able to meet their children’s basic health needs.

In 1993, the Clinton administration’s Health Care Interdepartmental Working Group conceived of a strategy to nationalize health insurance by providing government coverage to children first and later phasing in the adult population. Ironically, a Republican Congress’ MediKid proposals are now implementing that strategy.

About the number of uninsured children:

This poor understanding of the dynamics of the health coverage market has led to inane solutions. The Senate MediKid proposal targets children too affluent to be eligible for Medicaid yet below 200 percent of the poverty level. The [Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation] reveals there are only 1.4 million chronically uninsured children in this income category. Nevertheless, the Senate designed a program to cover 2.8 million such children.

About the slow march toward government-run health care:

Congress’ MediKid proposals are a step toward nationalized health coverage. In 1993, the White House Health Care Interdepartmental Working Group devised a number of strategies for nationalizing health insurance. What the task force called “Option 3: Kids First Coverage” was a plan to move children out of the private health insurance market into government-run coverage as “a precursor to the new system” of national health insurance. The task force wrote:

This proposal is designed in two parts which will be implemented simultaneously: 1) The quick coverage of children — “Kids First”; and 2) the development of structures for transitioning to the new system and the phasing in of certain population groups.

Does anyone actually doubt that that's the whole point?