For the last few days there has been backlash from both sides of the debate of the SCHIP expansion bill which President Bush vetoed last week. Unfortunately for the American people, this debate has nothing to do with the bill itself, but has begun focusing on comments made by conservatives (myself included) over the Frost family whose 12 year old son gave the Democratic address last weekend.

While those on the left accuse conservatives of attacking an innocent child, those on the right blame the Democrats for putting the child at the forefront of the debate in the first place.
RightWingNutHouse summed it up pretty well:

But I’m not going to sit here and be accused of “smearing” a family when the Democrats believe it is perfectly legitimate political discourse to use the Frosts as a poster family for what is good about SCHIP while not allowing me to use them in the exact same political context to show what is wrong with the program.

With the veto override vote scheduled for October 18, it is necessary to bring the debate’s focus back on track. Democrats will tell you that the Presidents veto was a vote against children, but in order to fully grasp who the new expansion of SCHIP would cover, it is necessary to first look who it currently covers.

According to the states’ budget projections, 13 will spend more than 44 percent of their SCHIP funds in 2008 on people who are neither children nor pregnant women.

Michigan tops the list with 71.6 percent of its SCHIP money earmarked for adults who have no kids. In New Mexico, 52.3 percent of the state’s SCHIP dollars will be spent on childless adults.

Source: Department of Health and Human Services/CMS Data

If childless adults are already recieving this much money through the current guidelines in the “Childrens” Health Insurance Plan, how much do you think they would be recieving once the government expanding the program…. for the benefit of the children of course.

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Congress, Constitution, Health Care, Politics, Taxes