BuckeyeBlog

The Columbus Dispatch reports that almost 98,000 children in Ohio will soon be eligible for government health care when the governor’s plan to extend the program to middle class kids goes into effect on July 1. I don’t think this number tells the whole story, though.

First, a little background: in 2007 policymakers approved an expansion of the state’s children’s health insurance program to cover children who live in families between 200% and 300% of the federal poverty level, or FPL (that’s around $63,000 a year for a family of four). Because of federal action, this expansion will not go into effect until this year.

In anticipation of the new eligibility levels, the Dispatch looked into how many new children would be eligible for the program. The reporter uses data from a new state survey of Ohioans’ health coverage (the data is in pretty rough form and isn’t entirely complete). In that survey, the 98,000 number is the number of uninsured children who live in families below 300% of FPL. And while these children would be eligible for the new government health care program, they are not the only ones who would be eligible. Every child in the state who lives in families that make below 300% of FPL is theoretically eligible for the program, even ones who now have private insurance. By my figuring, that’s 1.73 million Ohio children eligible for government health care out of 2.6 million children in the state.

The numbers given by the state differ substantially from those given by the Census Bureau, which makes comparisons with its data useless. It appears the state will be releasing a full report on this data next month which will hopefully have more useful comparisons. But from what I can tell, over 2/3 of Ohio’s children are now eligible for government health care. And some people still think we have “free market” health care in this nation.

The U.S. House yesterday voted to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which helps fund state government health care program. Originally intended for children of the working poor, it has evolved to pay for adult health coverage (in some states more adults than children are served by the program), health care for middle class kids. Now, if this legislation becomes law (as it almost certainly will), states will get even more money to provide health care coverage and, in a reversal of the 1996 welfare reform law, children of legal immigrants will be allowed to enroll. To pay for this smokers will be forking over another 61 cents for every pack of cigarettes they buy.

What this all means is that states will be tempted to expand spending during a time where they should be cutting spending. Sure, proponents say it’s “for the kids,” but in reality most of the kids being covered by this program expansion would have had health insurance anyway. For many (up to 60% of recipients), all it does is move children (and adults) off private insurance onto insurance paid for by your tax dollars.

And anyone who thinks the cost of this program will be funded by a cigarette tax is deluded. Spending on government health programs like Medicaid and SCHIP increase year to year. Cigarette tax revenue usually decreases. There is no way that a declining revenue source like cigarette tax revenue will pay for the ever-increasing burden this SCHIP expansion will place on governments. So where will government get the rest of the money? From everyone else who pays taxes.

SCHIP is a bad program that makes little fiscal or policy sense. But, hey, it’s for the kids, so let’s not oppose it. After all, a program’s intentions are more important than than the actual content of the legislation, right?