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I recently signed an online petition supporting the just past and vetoed SCHIP bill. The petition went to my representative, Congressman Michael Burgess. Soon afterwards I received an email response giving the reasons he was not supporting the bill. Two of those reasons he outlined in the following paragraph.
"The 1997, the SCHIP bill was a federal-state partnership. The original bill gave each state flexibility on how to fund their programs. Some states made the decision to cover adults or higher income families with limited SCHIP dollars. These states experienced budget shortfalls and returned to the federal government seeking money that had been unspent by states that had run a fiscally sound program, like the State of Texas. Under the current program these states can take money away from Texas children in order to cover adults in their state. This is unfair."
With a little research I found that this new bill actually codifies the removal of adults from the SCHIP program so that concern of the representative is not valid, and he should have known that if he has read the bill.
But what disturbs me the most is his claim that Texas runs a "fiscally sound program." According to the U.S. Census Bureau Texas has 23.9% of its citizens without healthcare.
A quick check of other states and I found that is the highest rate of uninsured citizens, including children in the complete USA. Our Texas program is not "fiscally sound" it is cheap, short sighted, or just plain mean spirited.
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