[StBernard] Socialized Medicine's Front Door

[Westley Annis]

Socialized Medicine's Front Door   
By Robert D. Novak   

WASHINGTON - The Alice-in-Wonderland quality of legislating   
in Congress was typified this week. The Democratic Congress   
quickly passed a national health insurance bill, drafted in   
secret and protected from amendment, that constitutes the   
most important legislation of this session. While designed   
for a presidential veto, it is national health insurance --   
through the front, not the back, door. Democrats view it as   
no-lose: either landmark health care will be enacted over   
President George W. Bush's veto, or, if overridden, they'll   
have a lovely 2008 campaign issue.   

This outcome was previewed a week ago by Democratic Leader   
Steny Hoyer and Republican Whip Roy Blunt in a colloquy on   
the House floor. Blunt questioned the procedure under which   
radical expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance   
Program (SCHIP) would be passed as a "bill that has not   
been debated." No matter, Hoyer replied. It will not really   
be a new bill because "there will be nothing, I think, in   
the bill that was not in the House or Senate bills" that   
were passed previously. Such is the sad state of   
congressional procedure today.   

This business as usual on Capitol Hill is worth noting   
because SCHIP extension covers much more than the poor   
children originally intended to be helped. The new bill   
covers families with income up to $82,000 a year, threaten-   
ing to crowd out the private health industry. Only Congress   
could conceive making families simultaneously eligible for   
SCHIP to help the poor and AMT (the alternative minimum   
tax) to punish the rich.   

SCHIP was conceived in 1997 by the Republican-controlled   
Congress, still uneasy about defeating Hillary Clinton's   
health care plan four years earlier and intending to   
provide supplementary health insurance for poor children.   
When Democrats took control of Congress this year, they   
sought to transform a relatively modest program into a   
government takeover of health care. Separate bills were   
passed in the House and Senate months ago along party   
lines, but Republican senators blocked a Senate-House   
conference to iron out the differences.   

Following the summer break, key Democrats started meeting   
behind closed doors -- Republicans excluded -- the weekend   
of Sept. 14-15, seeking a way for the House to pass the   
Senate bill and send it to the president. The finished   
product was not put in Republican hands until 6:30 p.m.   
on Monday, Sept. 24, with the vote scheduled for 24 hours   
later and no chance to vote for a substitute, much less   
amend the bill. It extends SCHIP to families up to 400   
percent of poverty ($82,000 a year) in New York, 350   
percent in New Jersey and 300 percent elsewhere. States   
also can extend the aid to childless adults. Indeed,   
"children" includes anyone less than 21 years of age.   

"A growing body of professional literature shows that when   
government health insurance expands, up to 60 percent of   
existing private coverage is 'crowded out,'" said a   
Heritage Foundation report last week. The program's $35   
billion expansion is supposed to be financed by a 61-cent   
cigarette tax increase, but financing abruptly is scheduled   
to fall 72 percent halfway through 2012. With private   
insurance probably no longer available, Congress would   
then have no choice but to provide additional funding.   

Bush's inevitable veto will face a certain override in the   
Senate, where supposedly conservative Republican graybeards   
have defected. Orrin Hatch is in another partnership with   
his friend, Ted Kennedy. Chuck Grassley, ranking GOP member   
on the Finance Committee, again has drifted leftward.   

In the House, Republican Rep. Ray LaHood has worked closely   
with his fellow Illinoisan, House Democratic Caucus Chair-   
man Rahm Emanuel, to round up Republican votes for a veto   
override. But LaHood and his allies were silent during   
Wednesday's House GOP conference. Rep. Paul Ryan, the top   
Budget Committee Republican, declared: "This is not a back   
door to get socialized medicine. They went straight to the   
front door." A headcount showed no more than 57 Republicans   
prepared to override Bush -- probably 11 short of what is   
needed.   

Democrats flinched at giving Republicans a hard choice:   
override the veto or end the existing SCHIP program.   
Instead, funding is being extended by a separate bill.   
Nevertheless, Democrats will eagerly pummel Republicans   
for "voting against kids" by refusing to sanction a long   
step toward Hillarycare.