The Zong

Awhile back, the New York Times ran an Op-Ed piece on the total cost of the Iraq War, hypothetically laying out all the things we could pay for with the money we spent on it. The approximate number was, conservatively, $1.2 trillion assuming the war ends someday. What with all the tax cuts and stuff advocated by this president, it has never been clear where all that loot might come from, or who would end up paying for it.

Today’s answer to that question seems to be simple: Impoverished children with diseases will!

Governors clashed with the White House on Monday over the future of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, an issue that some members of both parties said was as important as money for the Iraq war.

In the session at the White House, when President Bush reported on progress of the war, governors pressed him to provide more money so they could guarantee health insurance for children. In response, administration officials said states should make better use of the money they already had.

The Children’s Health Insurance Program doesn’t have (or need) a cute name. It’s a program that was started in 1997 as part of the Balanced Budget Act signed by Bill Clinton and supported by both parties in response to the number of uninsured children in the United States. As a piece of bipartisan legislation, it seemed as if politics worked the way it was supposed to for once because it demonstrated that, while there are a lot of differences in opinion on how to solve our country’s health care crisis, everyone recognized the need to provide health care to kids, regardless of the cost.

As with any national program, it isn’t perfect, but millions of children have health care because of it. Now, because the president and his GOP congress unbalanced the shit out of the budget and squandered the surplus they were handed, the President has decided that enough is enough, and that all these damn kids had better wipe their noses and suck it up, because we’re at war.

The federal government spends $5 billion a year on the program. Mr. Bush wants to continue that level, and he is seeking an ”additional allotment” of $4.8 billion over the next five years.

States would need substantially more to continue their programs with current eligibility rules and benefits. New estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show that the states face shortfalls of $700 million this year and a total shortage of $13.4 billion from 2008 to 2012.

$13.4 billion dollars to 2012? How much did the last 4 years of the Iraq War cost?

Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican, said the Bush proposals would jeopardize his state’s phenomenal success in covering children. In Vermont, he said, fewer than 4 percent of the children are uninsured, and “we don’t want to lose ground.”

Bush administration officials emphasized that states received a fixed amount of federal money each year, and they said individual children did not have a legal entitlement to benefits. Michael O. Leavitt, secretary of health and human services, said he would work with Congress to find “a short-term solution” for states exhausting their allotments this year. He said states could avoid shortfalls by managing their programs better.

Thanks, Mike. We’ll do that. How many people lived in Utah when you were governor?

In California, we have close to 800,000 uninsured kids by the most recent estimate. Across the country, this seems to be a no-brainer issue with both the GOP and Democrats, and so hopefully our legislators will spare these helpless children from the greedy war machine.

An influential member of Congress said Monday that he would not be taking up White House proposals to restrict eligibility and financing for the child health program.

“I have absolutely no intention of moving the president’s proposals through our subcommittee,” said the lawmaker, Representative Frank Pallone Jr., Democrat of New Jersey.

Mr. Pallone is chairman of the Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has authority over the children’s program.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that “Democrats in Congress understand the urgency” of the problem and would provide money to the 14 states that did not have enough to cover their current enrollment.

Of course, if all else fails, we can always count on THE GOVERNATOR.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican, said federal aid was essential to his $12 billion plan for universal health coverage. Mr. Schwarzenegger said that in a private meeting he told the president, “We need the federal government’s help.” He did not say whether he got a commitment.

- M.G.