Congress may soon return to reauthorization of the State
Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Extension of the
popular program should have been a simple, quick, and bipartisan
victory last year, but policy took a back seat to politics and
raw emotion, leaving confusion even among proponents on both
sides of the aisle. There was little time for serious
discussions about important policies.
As a result, congressional leaders were unable to resolve
smoldering controversies about the inclusion of higher-income
children and adults, the “crowd out” of private health insurance
because of public program expansions, or the expansion of
eligibility to non-citizens through mechanisms buried in the
bill, as well as the imposition of tax increases that were as
unnecessary as they were unpopular. Moreover, congressional
consideration of the SCHIP legislation was marred by…
