Child health fight grim sign for broader U.S. reforms

Child health fight grim sign for broader U.S. reforms
Wagons filled with petitions protesting President Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program sit in front of the White House, October 1, 2007. Washington is abuzz with predictions of health care system reforms after the 2008 presidential elections but an unexpectedly bitter impasse over insuring poor children is a telling reminder that few things stir up partisan passions like health care. (Jim Young/Reuters)WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington is abuzz with predictionsof health care system reforms after the 2008 presidentialelections but an unexpectedly bitter impasse over insuring poorchildren is a telling reminder that few things stir up partisanpassions like health care.
And when Democrats and Republicans feud, the outcome isoften ... nothing.
The State Children's Health Insurance Program is a popular10-year-old program backed by both parties, but lawmakers andPresident George W. Bush have deadlocked over extending andexpanding it. The U.S. Congress was leaving for a two-weekThanksgiving break on Friday without a solution.
Some policy experts predict that if politicians cannotagree on insuring poor kids, it is going to be challenging evenfor a new president and a new Congress to move ahead in 2009 onfar broader changes to the health care system.
"We have a big dysfunctional sector of the economy withlots of money floating around," said Michael Cannon, a healthanalyst at the libertarian Cato Institute.
Shaking up that system inevitably creates winners andlosers, he said, "so most of the time we're at this stalematewhere everyone's second best option is the same: Do nothing."
And any debate over health coverage, whether for childrenor larger populations, means a highly ideological fight aboutthe appropriate role of government, said Ed Howard of thenonpartisan Alliance for Health Reform, a veteran of manyWashington health care battles.
Reformers have been trying to overhaul the U.S. system fordecades. The last big legislative push came in the early 1990sunder Democratic President Bill Clinton and first lady HillaryClinton. Now a senator from New York, a revamped healthcoverage plan is a key theme in her 2008 presidential bid.
PROBLEMS HAVE DEEPENED
In the last decade, many U.S. health care problems havedeepened. Health spending has soared and now makes up one-sixthof the U.S. economy. The number of uninsured has reached 47million. Researchers have identified troubling levels ofmedical errors and lapses in quality.
"We had a big attempt (at reform) 13 years ago. It didn'twork. Then we decided to work incrementally and that's been apretty spectacular failure. The problems are getting worse,"said Karen Pollitz, of Georgetown University's Health PolicyInstitute.
Bush vetoed the children's health coverage bill and hasvowed to kill future versions unless it shrinks to hisspecifications.
He said the plan, which would increase funding to $60billion from the current $25 billion over five years, was toocostly and could shift middle-income kids from privateinsurance to government-run care. He also objected to raisingtobacco taxes to pay for the program.
Democrats say the extra money is needed to continuecoverage for the roughly 6.6 million children currentlyenrolled and provide coverage to about 3.4 million more.
Conservatives call the children's health program"socialized medicine" or a "government-takeover" of healthcare, rhetoric that echoes previous debates and may foreshadowRepublican attacks on coverage proposals if a Democrat wins theWhite House next year.
"Name calling is a tried and true weapon," said Pollitz.
Republican candidates have their own health proposals, manyrelying on tax credits and changes to private insurancemarkets. Democrats often dismiss them as fig leafs that mayhelp businesses with a stake in health care but do little forpeople who cannot afford coverage.
(Editing by Lori Santos and Vicki Allen)