On Oct. 3, President Bush vetoed legislation to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, a program that provides health care coverage for more than 6 million children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private health insurance. The legislation vetoed by President Bush, which passed with large bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, would have increased funding for SCHIP to cover an additional 4 million children who are already eligible for the program but are not enrolled because of funding constraints.

In Illinois matching funds from SCHIP are used to cover 170,000 children under the state’s All Kids health care program.

Sixty-five percent of the cost of covering these children is paid for by the federal government through SCHIP and the rest is picked up by the state.

Enactment of the SCHIP reauthorization bill would allow the state to save additional money by covering an additional 154,000 existing All Kids patients with SCHIP matching funds.

Failure to reauthorize SCHIP, however, would shift more of the cost of covering uninsured children to our state government, which is already financially strapped.

President Bush’s explanation of his decision to veto the SCHIP reauthorization bill is heavy on scare tactics, misinformation and overheated rhetoric. The president claims that the legislation was pushed by the Democrats as “an incremental step toward government-run health care.” This statement ignores two important points. First, the SCHIP reauthorization bill passed with strong Republican support in both the House and Senate. Second, the vast majority of SCHIP beneficiaries receive treatment through privately managed care plans. President Bush also claims that the SCHIP bill will encourages middle class families to leave private health plans to enroll in SCHIP. In reality, over 90 percent of the children that would be covered by SCHIP under the legislation are from families of four that earn $41,000 or less per year.

This past Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives was given the chance to vote on overriding President Bush’s veto. Unfortunately, the roll call came up 13 votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed for an override despite support from 44 House Republicans.

I was deeply disappointed that our member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Timothy V. Johnson (R-Urbana) chose to ignore the needs of his constituents by voting to support President Bush’s veto.

The failure of the override vote means that SCHIP is set to expire on Nov. 16, 2008 unless a deal can be reached between Congress and President Bush. Failure to reauthorize SCHIP would have disastrous consequences for our state’s most vulnerable children. Recognizing the moral implications of this issue, a coalition of more than 2,000 clergy from across the country signed a letter to President Bush that stated, “Our shared faith traditions teach us that children are a precious gift from God. As adults, we have a sacred obligation to protect our nation’s young people.”

I could not agree more with them.

With time running out, our leaders in Washington must quit playing political games with children’s lives and reauthorize SCHIP.

State Senator 52nd District