It sounded bad last Friday when reports revealed that former Senator Tom Daschle had paid $128,000 in back taxes during his vetting process as the nominee for health secretary. By Tuesday it was over.
And while Daschle’s tax gaffe was yet another embarrassment to the new administration, which seems to have a knack for selecting candidates with tax problems—Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (confirmed) and Nancy Killefer, who withdrew her name—it’s clear after a short period that health care reform is on the way.
SCHIP
On Wednesday President Obama signed a bill to extend and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP), a safety net that provides government funds to help states offer health insurance to millions of children. The program was set to expire March 31.
Under the new parameters, SCHIP will continue covering 7 million children and open it up to four million more, including children of legal immigrants, and loosens restrictions on enrollment. If talk of SCHIP sounds familiar, that’s because former President Bush twice vetoed efforts to expand the program in 2007. It was initially passed in 1997 to cover children not covered by Medicaid.
The program will cost about $33 billion over four and half years and will be funded largely by an increase in taxes on cigarette sales.
More moves on health care
The stimulus package that’s working its way through Congress (with less ease in the Senate) includes a good portion of spending on health care, which we mentioned last week. In the version that passed the House, billions are allocated to help cover Medicaid costs at the state level and extend its reach to some of the newly uninsured, plus help people without jobs pay for insurance. See a cost breakout here.
The big picture
While SCHIP is designed as a safety net to catch families who are poor but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid (monthly income of less than $1,911), the health care expenditures in the stimulus package are significant steps toward health care reform, and Obama’s pledge to make health care more accessible and affordable to every person in the United States. Critics say the moves are steps toward nationalizing health care, putting the burden on the government and not the individual. Already government spending on health care equals about $8,000 per person. With 47 million people uninsured, those numbers may rise. On Friday the bureau of labor statistics reported that 598,000 people lost their jobs in January, on top of the 2.6 million lost in 2008.
