SCHIP'n In For The Kids

S-Town over at the Enclave reported earlier that Congressman Jim Cooper voted against the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) legislation before the House of Reps, which was legislation billed at helping to pay for medical care for the lil' tykes.

I was a bit surprised that Cooper voted against this, so I contacted his Press Secretary John Spragens to see what his reasoning was. According to him, it wasn't so much that Cooper wanted to vote against S-CHIP, because he supported it; what he wasn't so fond of was the 50% or so of the money allocated in the bill that went to Medicare in some "questionable ways". Spragens continued:

There were billions in inducements added to this bill to gain political support, and many of the funding mechanisms were shortsighted and gimmicky. Add to that the fact that the bill was not marked up by the Energy and Commerce Committee, that no amendments were allowed on the floor, that a few billion dollars in last-minute earmarks were thrown in-what should have been a modest expansion of a popular, bipartisan program became a very expensive, very partisan mess.

Ultimately, this comes down to the fact that Cooper has made a Congressional career out of being focused on our soaring budget deficit and budgetary problems. The easy thing for him to do would've been to vote for this bill, because he wouldn't have lost any votes because of it...thats for sure. But it would've been inconsistent with his entire message which is to cut our deficit and debt, or else those kiddies with better insurance would get screwed later on by being saddled with massive amounts of federal debt.

According to Spragens, Cooper is optimistic that some of his problems with the bill in it's current form will be fixed in committee, and that he "is very much hoping to support the House-Senate compromise."

I don't know if I personally would've voted the way that Cooper did...and I certainly wouldn't oppose it for the reasons listed by Tom Tancredo, but I have to have some respect for a guy who could've quite easily voted for a bill that he felt (as a whole) wasn't good for the Country, but he instead took the hit and voted against it. One thing I dislike more than Conservatism, is Populism, and I'd rather have an economic conservative than a populist any day of the week.

Update:

Statement from Cooper himself:

"SCHIP has been a great program across the country, and of course I support expanding children's access to health coverage. In this case, though, the admirable parts of the bill were drowned in dozens of billions of dollars of unnecessary spending that has nothing to do with children's health. Over 10 years the CHAMP Act will cost $250 billion, and only half of that actually goes to children's health. The House version of this 471-page bill was full of extra spending and politically-minded handouts, it was poorly financed and unfairly funded, it was never marked up by its committee of jurisdiction, not subject to amendment on the House floor, and not available when I asked to read it the morning of the vote. In short, it was loaded up and rammed through the House, when it should have been debated and improved by all members of Congress.

"SCHIP is a program with broad bipartisan support, but in this case it was wielded as a very expensive political weapon. I sincerely wish I could have supported the CHAMP Act. I hope after conference with the Senate it will become a better piece of public policy, one that helps children in need without mortgaging their future."