In article ,
 Josh Hill  wrote:

> Right-wing propaganda. It's been an enormously successful program
> that's insured millions of kids. It would have insured several million
> more uninsured children.
> 
    Actually Congressional Budget Office stats. Damn them right wing CBO 
people.

> If Bush had really been concerned about (essentially non-existent)
> abuse, he would have offered an alternative that would have insured
> those kids. He did not.

   Heck we can't even get the one's who are qualified on board. About 
two-thirds of the nation's uninsured children already are eligible for 
either Medicaid or SCHIP but aren't enrolled. Raising the income 
threshold won't solve this core problem. Congress should require states 
to focus on the 689,000 children who the Urban Institute says are 
uninsured and would be eligible for SCHIP if eligibility were limited to 
the $41,300 income level.
   The other big problem is that many states are using SCHIP dollars to 
insure adults. Fourteen states cover adults through SCHIP, and at least 
six of them are spending more of their SCHIP dollars on adults than on 
children.
   Much of the new bill's money would go others outside of both poverty 
and childhood. The congressional measure would give $60 billion to the 
states over five years to enroll millions more "children" - although 
many of them would be adults. Others would be from higher-income 
families.
New York, for instance, could submit a plan that would add children in 
families earning up to $83,000 a year to SCHIP. New Jersey could 
continue to cover kids whose parents make up to $72,000. All the other 
states would be allowed to cover kids in families with incomes up to 
$61,000.
Most children in these higher-income families, unsurprisingly, are 
already covered by private insurance. According to the Congressional 
Budget Office, (damn those conservatives in the CBBO yet again) 77 
percent of children in families earning more than twice the poverty line 
have private health insurance now.
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