There has been a lot in the news lately about the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), currently being reauthorized by Congress. It is clear from the rhetoric that the public is being misled about the purpose of this program. The SCHIP program is administered by the states with the assistance of federal matching funds. It was designed to help working families pay for their children’s health care. States contract with private health care plans to provide coverage for their children.

SCHIP is not a program exclusively for the poor. Medicaid already provides health care for children who are indigent. SCHIP was created to provide relief for middle income Americans whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid and not enough to be able to afford health care on the open market. Providing quality, affordable health care for these children is a moral issue. In 1997, Congress agreed, and with overwhelming bipartisan support created the SCHIP program.

It has been a decade since this program was created, and it is time for Congress to reassess the program and establish funding levels for the next five years. In its short history, SCHIP has been a success. More than six million American children currently benefit from the health care coverage it provides, but it is estimated that over 12 million children are eligible for its coverage. Now we are taking on the hard work of reauthorizing this program. And although it would require $50 billion to cover all eligible children for 5 years, we could only get Senate support for a spending level of $35 billion which would still leave about 2 million uncovered.

I have heard the complaints of my Republican colleagues, including some in the South Carolina delegation, that this program is a step toward socialized medicine, and that middle income families should be excluded from its coverage. Both complaints are ludicrous, and fly in the face of positions taken by various members of their party, including President Bush.

I am sure those children, including the 41,800 in South Carolina, who would be brought into the SCHIP program under this expansion would take issue with the characterization of those opposing this legislation. In the first place how is it possible that a program that covers 10 million children is a step towards socialized medicine but one that covers six million is not?

Secondly, President Bush did not call it socialized medicine when he called for its expansion in his acceptance of the Republican nomination for a second term, nor did he call for eliminating middle-income families from its coverage. I believe it to be a moral imperative that we extend health care to all America’s children. It is the least we should do for “the least of these.”

The President has proven with his veto that he doesn’t believe in this moral imperative. On October 18th, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote to override his efforts to shut out the children of these needy families. On behalf of the children of South Carolina, I hope that every member of our delegation will do the right thing and vote to provide this much needed relief to hard working middle-income Americans. It is a vote of conscience over callousness.