July 13, 2007

My esteemed colleague, Ben Zycher, forgot to tally up the bill for SCHIP expansion - quoted by the Washington Times at $35 billion in new SCHIP funding to cover an additional 2 million uninsured children.

For those whose calculators can hold that many zeros, that amounts to $17,500 per child covered. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2006 employer-based health insurance coverage for a family of four cost $11,500, or about 30% less.

Even this comparison is deceiving, because employers are covering many, many more services for families than would be needed to cover children, whose health care needs are typically much cheaper (think: vaccines).

The bottom line is that spending $35 billion to cover 2 million children is the equivalent of the Pentagon paying $200 for a toilet seat cover.

But Ben is certainly right about one thing: the President should veto any bill with significant new SCHIP funding that does not include equally substantial reforms of the free market variety. After all, the President's approval rating is low right now, but Congress' is lower.

If Democrats want to take credit for accomplishing "something" in health care going into the '08 elections, the President should make sure he gets an individual tax deduction or tax credit out of it - combined with a cap for employer provided health insurance - thus equalizing the playing field between employer-based and individually purchased health insurance.

This would make it possible for millions more Americans to purchase private health insurance for themselves at zero cost to the federal treasury.

That's a win-win for Congress, the President, and the uninsured.

Posted by Paul Howard at July 13, 2007 03:28 PM