Make no mistake about it, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bills that recently passed both the U.S. House and Senate are the federal health care version of the adage of the boiled frog!
In that story, you will remember, if a frog is thrown into a pot of boiling water, the frog will jump out. But if it’s put in a pot of tepid water and the heat is slowly turned up to a boil, the frog will ultimately be cooked to death.
In 1993 the Clintons tried to throw the country into a boiling Hillary-care pot, and we all jumped out. Indeed, we jumped so fast that we swept a whole Democratic-led Congress out of power. Well, advocates for a government-run health care system learned their lesson and they learned it well.
SCHIP also started as a tepid program—Really, who could oppose health insurance for underprivileged children?—but it is morphing into a middle-class health insurance entitlement.
The bills in the two chambers are different but generally they would expand eligibility to 300 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), or about $62,000 for a family of four. New York has lifted the eligibility to 400 percent FPL, or about $80,000. Not exactly underprivileged wages now, is it? Turn up the heat a notch.
And just how is the country going to pay for this magnificent largesse? With a hefty new tax on tobacco. The thinking is, who cares whether evil tobacco is taxed and taxed again and then taxed some more? But therein lies the rub. Turn up the heat another notch.
Tobacco use is on the decline in America. In fact, anti-smoking organizations support even higher taxes and more regulation on tobacco in the hope that they will dissuade smoking and eventually eliminate tobacco’s accursed hold on innocent citizens.
But if we increase eligibility for SCHIP and then pay for it with revenue from a declining-use commodity, what’s going to happen when the tobacco money runs out? Turn up the heat another notch.
Is everyone blind to the cross-purposes here? America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a health insurance trade association, has published an ad saying that the two provisions are beneficial: we get expanded health coverage and a tax increase that will discourage tobacco usage. But we need people using tobacco to pay for the coverage! Turn up the heat another notch.
We will have created an ever-expanding expectation from an ever-growing protected class and require new and higher taxes that will come from who knows where. Turn up the heat another notch.
And the next thing you know, we’re cooked!