There is much not to like in Jim Wallis' characterization of President Bush's veto of the SCHIP (State Children Health Insurance Program) bill. Here's what Wallis says:
"To veto the bill, with no alternative plan instead - to simply abandon millions of poor children, to leave them to a market system that is failing to provide health care to enough people - is simply morally unacceptable. We must not allow this to become an ideological battle over the larger issue of health care systems. This is about a specific program for poor children that a bipartisan majority believes is working. This is not about health care theories - this is about children. And now, overriding a presidential veto will become the next faith-based issue."
Wallis makes it sound as if there is no alternative to the bill the President vetoed, but this is misleading. There is an alternative plan. The previous plan which has been in effect for ten years is perfectly acceptable to the President who even favors increasing the funding for it. It's the expansion of that plan that the President has vetoed.
He also characterizes the children affected by the veto as poor, but poor children are covered by Medicaid. The affected children live in families with incomes between $40,000 and $60,000, which makes them middle class.
Many of the children who are uncovered lack coverage because their families choose not to buy it. Many of the affected children are in families headed by unwed mothers. Why the taxpayer should subsidize the production of children out of wedlock Wallis doesn't explain, but he obviously thinks we should, even when the family is living above the poverty line.
Wallis alleges that the President vetoed a program that has been working. He did not. He vetoed an expansion of that program. Wallis also insists that these are all children who will be affected by the veto, but that, too, is misleading. In its final form the expanded program would cover people up to the age of 21.
There's no reason why Congress and the White House couldn't compromise on some of the more egregious provisions in this bill, but the Dems won't be in a hurry to do so. They'll find it much more satisfying to join Wallis in misrepresenting the President's position and hammering him for trying to keep the country from slipping into government subsidized health care for everyone. If he wants to point us to something that's "morally unacceptable" maybe he could start with that.
RLC