State Children’s Health Insurance Program of 1997
The 1997 State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) represented the most extensive expansion of the welfare state in decades. The program matches state health insurance funds for families with children. The program is intended to help impoverished families that aren't covered by Medicaid. The 2007, re-authorization bill provided $7 billion to SCHIP for two years, essentially maintaining the program at its previous levels without adding to the rolls. In 2009, a further $33 billion expansion of SCHIP passed, expanding coverage to 4 million children.
Cry Wolf Quotes
The Children's Health Insurance Program has given Democrats a wide-open door for socialized medicine. The door was left open by Republicans, who were in the majority when we passed the original legislation in 1997.
To prejudice a narrow sector of the U.S. economy with the aim of funding a broad-based entitlement program is grossly unfair and burdensome to American businesses and consumers.
Democrats are making it clear that they intend to use our economic crisis to rush through their longtime liberal goals without public scrutiny or debate. ... This will increase burdens on taxpayers and take a significant step toward socialized medicine.
[The GOP] must decide soon where they stand on the issue of socialized medicine. President Clinton threw down the gauntlet in his State of the Union address, when he proposed guaranteeing health insurance for at least half of the 10 million American children who have none.
