Summaries of several recent editorials and opinion pieces that address the recent presidential veto of legislation to reauthorize and expand SCHIP, as well as related issues, appear below.

Editorials

• Boston Globe: Supporters of the SCHIP bill "need to convince" Republicans who oppose the legislation that the "bill is not a stop on the road to socialized medicine, nor does it expand subsidies to the 'upper class,'" according to a Boston Globe editorial. The editorial adds that the bill "is an attempt to provide insurance, largely through private companies, to children in families" with annual incomes of as much as 250% or 300% of the federal poverty level, which is "hardly the upper class" (Boston Globe, 10/5).
  
  
• Charlotte Observer: "Facts didn't matter enough to President Bush as he stood resolute and vetoed a bipartisan bill to increase funding" for SCHIP, but "facts should matter to members of Congress who have the power to override his veto," an Observer editorial states. SCHIP has "made remarkable inroads" in efforts to reduce the number of uninsured children, the editorial states, adding, "It's hardly surprising then that in a nationwide poll, 91% of Americans said they want Congress to help states cover more uninsured children." According to the editorial, lawmakers who voted against the legislation "should reconsider and help override" Bush's veto (Charlotte Observer, 10/4).
  
  
• Colorado Springs Gazette: The veto of the SCHIP bill has prevented an expansion in "cost and scope of a federal health care program that was designed to assist the poor but is in danger of becoming a new middle-class entitlement," a Gazette editorial states. "What we hate is watching the unending expansion of a nanny state that treats free people like dependent children who can't take care of themselves," and "we applaud the veto," according to the editorial (Colorado Springs Gazette, 10/3).
  
  
• Detroit News: The veto of the SCHIP bill "gives Congress a chance to go back and pass a more realistic measure that sticks to the mission of providing health care to the nation's needy children," a News editorial states. According to the editorial, Bush "had supported increasing funding" to SCHIP by $5 billion to "ensure that more kids whose parents can't afford health insurance get coverage," but he "couldn't support -- and the nation can't afford -- a $35 billion increase in the program that would have added middle-class families to the public health tab," the editorial states. "Opponents of the expansion are being pegged as anti-child. That's not the case. They are resisting adding further debt to a federal budget that is already way out of balance," the editorial states (Detroit News, 10/4).
  
  
• Miami Herald: "President Bush's veto of the children's insurance bill is like Imelda Marcos denying a barefoot child a pair of shoes," a Herald editorial states. "The president complains that expanding health coverage for low-income children would cost too much and lead to socialized medicine," the editorial states, adding, "Neither assertion is true." The editorial states, "We urge the representatives who voted against the bill, most of them Republican, to reconsider," adding, "Instead of supporting the questionable priorities of a lame-duck president, they should vote to improve the health prospects of low-income children" (Miami Herald, 10/4).
  
  
• New York Post: Critics have mischaracterized the veto of the SCHIP bill as "'heartless,' 'irresponsible' and a bid to deny 'health care to millions of low-income kids in America'" because the veto "will help poor, sick kids and their struggling families," a Post editorial states. According to the editorial, Bush "sensibly seeks to put a stop to efforts to transform SCHIP into an unaffordable middle-class entitlement and re-focus the program on its original intent: insuring poor kids. What's so 'heartless' about that?" (New York Post, 10/4).
  
  
• New York Times: SCHIP "is a tiny blip in the federal budget compared with Medicare and Medicaid," and "House members need to think hard whether it is worth denying coverage to millions of uninsured children just to keep the blip a little smaller," a New York Times editorial states. Congress must indicate to Bush that "blind partisanship will not be rewarded," the editorial states, adding, "For the sake of America's children, lawmakers must override the veto" (New York Times, 10/5).
  
  
• Orlando Sentinel: The "unfortunate" veto of the SCHIP bill "could quickly become tragic if the White House and Congress can't put election-year politics aside and reach a compromise," a Sentinel editorial states. According to the editorial, Democrats "should not launch a cynical attempt to override the veto," as they do not have the votes, and "Bush should stop portraying this effort to expand SCHIP as a secret plan to socialize America's health care system." The editorial states, "Congress ought to put greater restrictions on SCHIP to be sure only children in families without access to affordable insurance are enrolled," adding, "Those safeguards against abuse should be the common ground upon which to build a compromise" (Orlando Sentinel, 10/4).
  
  
• Philadelphia Daily News: "It's not clear" whether Bush "actually understands how SCHIP works ... or, more likely, how poverty works" based on his recent comments about the bill, a Daily News editorial states. According to the editorial, Bush "says he believes in private insurance" and "doesn't want socialized or federalized medicine," but "SCHIP is private insurance, and it isn't socialized medicine, since families pay for it." The editorial concludes, "Congress will have to fight hard to override Bush's veto," but "this is well worth fighting for" (Philadelphia Daily News, 10/4).
  
  
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Just about everything the president and his surrogates have said about the bill is wrong," but Bush and Republicans "used these demonstrably false assertions to justify vetoing a bill to continue and modestly expand the popular and remarkably successful" program, according to a Post-Dispatch editorial. The editorial states, "Congress now must stand up for children's health and override the president's veto" because "protecting children is among the highest values of society and one of its most crucial obligations," adding, "As Congress prepares to override Mr. Bush's veto, those who voted against the SCHIP plan should take care to ensure that they're not fooled all the time" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10/4).
  
  
• Washington Examiner: The SCHIP bill "would not only blow another gaping hole in the federal budget, it would take us another step toward government-run -- i.e. socialized -- health care coverage," and the veto has prevented the implementation of the "Democrats' plan to replace our doctors with their bureaucrats," an Examiner editorial states. According to the editorial, "It's chilling to think of government bureaucrats making life-and-death decisions for the rest of us" (Washington Examiner, 10/3).
  
  
• Washington Times: "Rather than working for a serious compromise, congressional Democrats are digging in their heels in order to play the obstructionist," a Washington Times editorial states. According to the editorial, "For now, the biggest losers are the SCHIP recipients they purportedly wish to help" (Washington Times, 10/5).
  

Opinion Pieces

• Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), Kansas City Star: Enactment of the SCHIP bill "would likely mean that two million kids who already have private insurance would opt for their states' government-run health care program," and that "isn't fixing a problem, it's increasing government," Graves writes in a Star opinion piece. In addition, the SCHIP bill "could extend benefits to illegal immigrants and families who already have health insurance and would place the entire program in questionable financial shape without sufficient funding to pay for its own largesse" (Graves, Kansas City Star, 10/3).
  
  
• Laura Redoutey, Lincoln Journal Star: Enactment of the SCHIP bill is "important" because "many children have been waiting too long for the health care they need," Redoutey, president of the Nebraska Hospital Association, writes in a Journal Star opinion piece. According to Redoutey, lawmakers who voted against the legislation should "reconsider their positions and vote in favor of this important program" when Congress seeks to override the veto (Redoutey, Lincoln Journal Star, 10/3).
  
  
• Paul Krugman, New York Times: "Most conservatives ... try to preserve the appearance that they really do care about those less fortunate than themselves," but the "truth is that they aren't bothered by the fact that almost nine million children in America lack health insurance," columnist Krugman writes in a Times opinion piece, adding, "They don't think it's a problem." He continues, "What's happening, presumably, is that modern movement conservatism attracts a certain personality type. If you identify with the downtrodden, even a little, you don't belong. If you think ridicule is an appropriate response to other people's woes, you fit right in." Krugman says that the current "Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard," noting that leading Republican presidential candidates "have gone out of their way to condemn 'socialism,' which is GOP-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate" (Krugman, New York Times, 10/5).
  
  
• Froma Harrop, Providence Journal: Bush is "dead set against legislation that would raise the number of children covered by SCHIP" over concerns that such a bill "would 'subsidize' rich families," although he supports the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which "extends taxpayer-subsidized health care to retirees earning 2,000 times the poverty rate," syndicated columnist Harrop writes in a Journal opinion piece. According to Harrop, the "writers of the SCHIP legislation worked on the simple-minded idea that the taxpayers could help uninsured children just by picking up their medical bills," but they "didn't understand the subtle thinking of the Bush administration, which can't support a government program that doesn't also enrich private interests" (Harrop, Providence Journal, 10/3).
  
  
• Max Borders, Raleigh News & Observer: SCHIP promotes "overconsumption, so adding more people will drive up costs even more," and, as a result, "we should be leery of the suggestion that a veto of SCHIP expansion is a refusal to cover children," Borders, a policy analyst at the John W. Pope Civitas Institute, writes in a News & Observer opinion piece. "For the middle class," the provision of health insurance for children "is the responsibility of parents, not politicians," he writes (Borders, Raleigh News & Observer, 10/4).
  
  
• Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), <Roll Call: "Second chances to legislate seem always possible and never practical, but the House now has a practical second chance to get children's health care right," Barton writes in a Roll Call opinion piece. "House Democrats have been manufacturing this confrontation with the president all year," and when the "heat was on, they responded largely by ignoring the regular and established legislative process," Barton continues. He concludes that he and other House Republicans "hope" that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) can "find a way to agree that good process will produce better legislation, and that she will quickly instruct the committees to conduct public hearings followed by fair, open mark ups of the SCHIP extension" (Barton, Roll Call, 10/4).
  
  
• Marc Yacht, St. Petersburg Times: Bush has said that enactment of the SCHIP bill would represent a "step toward federalized health care," but "organized medical associations are having trouble with that rhetoric," Yacht, a retired director of the Pasco County Health Department in Florida, writes in a Times opinion piece. SCHIP "has been a highly successful program of which the major criticism has been that too many children are left out," he writes, adding, "It is very difficult to defend our current nonsystem of health care that seeks to protect private insurance and reject a national health care program based on a tax" (Yacht, St. Petersburg Times, 10/3).
  
  
• Stuart Butler, Washington Examiner: The "proper response" to the veto of the SCHIP bill is to "propose a compromise that attracts broad bipartisan support," Butler, vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, writes in an Examiner opinion piece. "The best way to achieve this goal would be to combine a reauthorized SCHIP program with a tax credit for children in families just above the basic eligibility level," he writes, adding, "Such a compromise would aim to expand coverage for uninsured children while helping to preserve existing coverage for modest-income families who are struggling to make ends meet" (Butler, Washington Examiner, 10/3).
  
  
• Michael Seid, Washington Examiner: "Studies have shown that SCHIP has increased children's access to doctors and other health services," Seid, a RAND researcher, writes in an Examiner opinion piece. In addition, Seid writes, a recent study conducted by RAND researchers found that, "after enrollment, children received needed health care services more frequently and also reported quality-of-life improvements, such as doing better in school, feeling better physically and getting along better with peers" (Seid, Washington Examiner, 10/3).
  
  
• Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: "Bush's veto Wednesday of a bipartisan bill" reauthorizing SCHIP was "infuriatingly bad policy," columnist Robinson writes in a Post opinion piece. "Bush's stated reasons for vetoing the SCHIP bill left even reliable congressional allies" -- including Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), "both of whom supported the legislation -- sputtering in incomprehension," Robinson continues. He notes that Hatch "said he believed Bush had been given bad advice by his staff," adding, "He didn't take the next step and draw what seems to me the obvious conclusion: Either Bush didn't understand the bill he vetoed or he's just being petulant -- with the health of four million children at stake" (Robinson, Washington Post, 10/5).
  
  
• Wesley Pruden, Washington Times: Polls show that the public is "all for" SCHIP, Pruden, editor-in-chief of the Times, writes in an opinion piece, adding, "Why not? The public will always be for anything that's 'free.'" He notes that the compromise legislation was passed in both chambers of Congress by "margins wide enough to put fuzzballs on the slippers of a lot of congressmen, but maybe not wide enough to overturn the president's principled veto," adding, "We can expect to hear a lot about cold, heartless Republicans who cackle ... at the prospect of little children getting sick with no prospect of getting well." Pruden concludes, "The president and his party would be easier to pity, even to shower with a little compassionate conservatism, if they had not abandoned their promises and principles six years ago to give the Democrats lessons in how to blow through billions of dollars in search of a bridge to nowhere" (Pruden, Washington Times, 10/5).