By Adam Searing
Two new statewide polls show a virtual tie in the race for U.S. Senate between incumbent Senator Elizabeth Dole and Democratic challenger Kay Hagan, a state senator from Greensboro. This is obviously sparking some worry over at the Dole campaign, where Dole’s name recognition and millions in donations have perhaps made her a little overconfident about victory.
One major worry for Dole is the widespread criticism of her vote last year against more affordable health insurance for children, or S-CHIP. Called “Health Choice†in North Carolina, this is an excellent, affordable health insurance program aimed at children in lower-income working families. It is becoming increasingly important as many in North Carolina are dealing with increasing healthcare costs, especially for family premiums. Additionally, plant closings and tough economic times are putting good jobs with health coverage at risk. In fact, North Carolina has one of the fastest growing rates of people losing health coverage through their employment.
This increasingly dire situation might be expected to prompt Dole to reconsider her opposition to last year’s bipartisan effort to lower health costs for kids in NC families. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Recently, Dole introduced a child health bill that actually rolls back coverage in North Carolina, is incapable of drawing the bipartisan support needed for passage, and seems designed simply as a prop for her to mention on the campaign trail.
Dole may argue that her bill funds some expansion of child health insurance and requires poor children to be funded first. However, last year she voted against bipartisan child health coverage twice – and the second time against a compromise bill that clearly concentrated most of the new money coming to states on lower-income children. There are four major reasons why Dole’s bill is a political band-aid in a year when families need real change:
Dole’s bill doesn’t treat our kids as she treats herself: As a US Senator, Ms. Dole enjoys a wonderful choice of taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance plans for both herself and her family. She can also visit a well-staffed health clinic right in the Capitol building — for free — should she have a headache or otherwise feel ill. An entire floor of a nearby world-class government hospital is set aside for the exclusive use of Senator Dole and other members of Congress. In contrast, Dole’s suggestions for how hundreds of thousands of uninsured children in “her†state are to obtain healthcare are inadequate, underfunded and far less than comprehensive. When will Sen. Dole be ready to provide the same healthcare she gets to every child in North Carolina?
Dole’s bill doesn’t even provide enough money to run the state’s current Health Choice program: The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that we will fall short of federal funding for the program in 2013, meaning North Carolina would have to stop offering child health coverage or come up with millions in state dollars to keep the program open.
Dole’s bill blocks the state’s new discount child health insurance plan for working families. North Carolina’s new proposed discount health insurance plan for working parents who don’t qualify for Health Choice is called NC Kids’ Care and was set to go into effect this year. Now it is delayed largely because of the defeat last year of new federal money for expanded health coverage — a defeat Dole enthusiastically participated in. Dole’s new face-saving proposal on child health just makes things worse. She sets unreasonable and unrealistic participation requirements in the current NC Health Choice program coupled with inadequate funding for insuring new children, either in NC Health Choice or NC Kids’ Care. Dole’s Catch 22 is this: To expand child health coverage, the state must enroll more children in Health Choice, but the state is not provided with enough new federal money to enroll more kids in Health Choice.
Dole’s bill would mean much less money for North Carolina: Under last year’s bipartisan bill, North Carolina would have received hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding to deliver health coverage for kids currently eligible but not enrolled in state child health programs. Dole’s bill — even if it passed — would do nothing to change this because the funding levels are so low they don’t even keep up with kids who are currently eligible for health coverage.
Instead of a genuine, bipartisan effort to expand health coverage for kids and lower health costs for families, Dole instead delivers a partisan face-saving bill with little or no chance of passage. This certainly isn’t the way to tackle one of the most important issues facing families in North Carolina.
Adam Searing is the Director of the North Carolina Health Access Coalition.
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