State Children's Health Insurance Program

State Children's Health Insurance Program

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to expand the boundaries of our knowledge by exploring some relevant facts and figures related to analysis of current bill. In this paper the author will discuss the issue, should the budget for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) be slightly expanded, to $30 billion--over the next five years? Or should it be dramatically expanded, to $60 billion? In this paper, the author will present the facts and figures in support of the argument made above.

Discussion & Analysis

As supporters of SCHIP expansion, the government is morally obligated to provide health insurance to underprivileged children, and raising the budget would allow millions of previously uninsured children to enroll in the program. A $60 million budget pales in comparison to the estimated $520 billion the U.S. has spent on the war with Iraq over the past four and a half years.

According to data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, a record 46.6 million Americans had no health insurance in 2005, the last year for which data are available. More than 8 million of those uninsured Americans were under the age of 18. Many children go uninsured because their parents have jobs that do not provide health care benefits, and their parents cannot afford to purchase health insurance on their own.

Since 1965, children whose families have earned less than the federal poverty level, adjusted each year by the federal government, have qualified for free health care through Medicaid, a government-run entitlement program. The government does not provide the care itself; rather, it pays physicians directly for care. Without health insurance, even the most basic check-up can be prohibitively expensive for a lower-income family, and more complicated medical procedures, such as surgeries, are out of the question. Medicaid, ...