President Bush has promised to veto the State Children’s Health Insurance Program bill when it comes to his desk. He should.

The purpose of SCHIP, when it was instituted in 1997, was to provide coverage for those who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to pay for private insurance. The new version of the bill, however, exceeds its original purpose by providing less-expensive coverage to those who can already afford private health insurance, thereby beginning the transition from private insurance to government-run health care.

The problems with the SCHIP bill are legion. It would increase the regressive cigarette tax that affects primarily the middle and lower classes – 33 percent of those living below the federal poverty level smoke cigarettes. The bill, if passed by the House and Senate, would expand coverage to approximately four million more people, including families of four earning $62,000 a year, or triple the federal poverty level, and in New York, some households earning as much as $83,000 a year could qualify. For the purposes of insurance coverage, it would expand the definition of children to people up to 23 years old, and would increase spending on SCHIP by at least $35 billion over the next five years.

Republican congressmen who opposed the bill, including Jim McCrery, R-La., Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Nathan Deal, R-Ga., have said the bill does not require that a person prove he or she is a citizen of the United States to receive coverage, requiring only a name and Social Security number. This leaves the newly expanded SCHIP wide open to abuse by illegal immigrants, resident aliens or any person who can steal the name and Social Security number of valid applicants.

American voters have been abandoned on all sides. The Republicans who voted for the bill have abandoned their base and their party platform of fiscal responsibility and government restraint. And the Democrats have voted to institute a regressive tax on the middle and lower classes – the very people whose interests they claim to hold dear – and have put partisan politics ahead of their constituents. The purpose of this bill seems to have been putting Republicans in a catch-22, where they either alienate their base by passing it, as they have done, or open themselves up to future criticism from the Democrats for, as Hillary Clinton put it, “putting ideology, not children, first.”

The old SCHIP coverage ended on Sept. 30, and as a result of the imminent veto of this garbage replacement, there will be no SCHIP coverage until Congress can come up with a new plan. We have Democrats to thank for proposing a bill that Republicans simply cannot support, and Republicans to thank for supporting a bad bill for fear of political backlash. If you think this bill is anything other than political maneuvering, consider the statements from Democratic leaders, such as House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., in the New York Times: “If (Bush) vetoes the bill, it’s a political victory for us,” and, as reported in the National Journal’s CongressDaily, “With a bill on its way to the president’s desk by the end of next week, Democrats will be safe in blaming the White House for allowing the program to expire, according to House Majority Leader Hoyer.”

The goal seems to be getting as many Americans to suckle from the government teat as possible, bringing everyone a step closer to socialized health care, or to stick it to the Republicans for not caring about children – a win-win situation for congressional Democrats and Democratic presidential hopefuls. But socialized health care isn’t good for Americans, adult or child, and neither is allowing coverage for low-income children to lapse for political purposes. Instead of proposing and supporting bad legislation for mere partisan politics, won’t somebody think of the children?