PeachCare must be saved
Guest Column By Congressman John Barrow

Supporters of the President's veto of SCHIP have been making a lot of claims about the bill. Unfortunately, many of those claims are false, or so partially true as to be completely misleading. Here's the other side of some of the false claims being offered up by supporters of the President's veto:

"The program won't be limited to the working poor. Families with household income up to $83,000 will qualify."

First of all, the $83,000 figure that is brought up again and again is a complete fiction. No state covers families making that much, and nothing in this bill would allow them to. The new bill mirrors the original SCHIP law, which allows states to cover families up to 200 percent of the poverty level. The only way a state can go over that limit is to petition the White House for a waiver. The Bush White House has granted waivers to 17 states, including New Jersey, which now covers families who make up to $72,000 - with this President's blessing. Understanding that the cost of living is different in different parts of the country, some states should be allowed to cover families at different income levels. The President is complaining about a problem he created. This bill fixes that problem by taking away the permission the President has to cover kids from higher income families until he covers kids from lower income families first.

"SCHIP will not be limited to kids."

This statement is false. It's the current law that doesn't limit SCHIP coverage to kids, not Congress' bill, and the bill fixes that. Under the bill the President vetoed, adults will be phased out over the next two years. At that point the only adults who could be covered under SCHIP will be pregnant women who can't afford their own insurance, but make too much to qualify for Medicaid. Last time I checked, the only way you can provide health care to an unborn child is to provide health care to the mother, and, frankly, I don't see how anyone can be opposed to that.

Let's face it: we're going to pay for the health care of our kids one way or the other. Right now there are 270,000 kids in Georgia who are covered by SCHIP. But there are many, many more kids who are just as qualified but aren't covered. The bill the President vetoed would cover 161,000 or more kids in Georgia.

Either we provide preventive care at less cost, making the parents pay what they can, or we'll be treating uninsured kids in the ER of your local hospital, where treatment is six times more expensive than preventive care in a doctor's office. That approach - the current approach - costs us a lot more and gets us a lot less in the way of good health care. And that's why I'll be voting to overturn the President's veto next week.

John Barrow is the United States Congressman for Georgia's 12th Congressional District.