Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on SCHIP

I know this is a little late with the veto vote having taken place today, but I wanted to share the email I got from my Congresscritter after I emailed her asking her to vote to override.

For those of you unfamiliar with her, Michele Bachmann is the "Hugger-in-Chief" who gained brief notoriety with her near-mugging of Bush after the State of the Union speech last January. (Apparently, Bush enjoyed it!) She's a freshman Republican in the Minnesota 6th District, which runs from St Cloud across the northern suburbs of Minneapolis-St Paul, to the Wisconsin border. There's a strong anti-choice element across the district, including the strongly Catholic St Cloud area and the heavy sprinkling of Dominionist wingnut megachurchs.

Subj: Responding to your message  
Date: 10/15/2007 8:46:50 A.M. Central Daylight Time
From: [e-mail]

October 15, 2007

Thank you for contacting me about the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

As you may know, Congress is engaged in a debate about the future of healthcare in America and what should have been a proposal to extend affordable coverage for low-income children.

SCHIP is set to expire soon. This decade-old program offers states federal funding to provide health insurance for children in households that do not qualify for Medicaid, but cannot afford private coverage.

Unfortunately, the program has become politicized, and Congress recently passed legislation to expand SCHIP coverage beyond children, beyond U.S. citizens, and beyond those who are truly in need, and that is where the problem lies.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, several million SCHIP-eligible children are still uninsured. Surely, children in need should have the health insurance promised to them before expanding SCHIP further up the income ladder or using more of the program's limited resources for adults.

Here's my idea. Let's cover the kids first. Let's focus on children in need without access to health insurance, and fund SCHIP as it was meant to be. I've publicly supported legislation that would accomplish these goals and keep SCHIP moving forward to help those it was intended to help.

But some want to move SCHIP in the wrong direction. Under the bill passed by Congress and vetoed by the President, SCHIP dollars could be used to cover childless adults and more affluent families - in some cases, households earning up to $83,000 per year. It also changes current law to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get SCHIP funds.

Rather than focusing on low-income, uninsured children, a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study shows that more than 77 percent of children affected by this expansion already have personal, private health insurance. In other words, the bill creates an incentive that pushes kids out of private insurance into a government-run program.

Worse, this legislation makes SCHIP financially unstable. In order to appear fiscally sound, it gives children health insurance for 5 years, and then it cuts SCHIP funding by nearly 80 percent - a classic bait and switch that will cause millions of American children to lose their health coverage.

According to the CBO, the bill will lead to only 800,000 currently eligible-but-unenrolled children being enrolled in SCHIP by 2012. The sad fact is that it would be cheaper to give each of these kids $72,000 than it would be to enact this bill, and it would probably show healthier results.

Rather than playing politics with children's healthcare or scoring political points with radio and TV ads, I believe Congress should show the American people that we are here to solve problems, and I will continue encouraging House leaders to do the right thing by bringing up an SCHIP bill we can all support.

Once again, thank you for contacting me. Please keep in touch.

Sincerely,

Michele Bachmann
Member of Congress

This is my response today:

I appreciate your response to my email regarding the SCHIP veto override, and note your expected vote against the veto override. However, I must point out that your email contained an egregious collection of partisan talking points that are outright lies. For example, the $83,000 income point was an exception being requested by New York, which was denied. No one with an $83,000 income would have been covered. The point about illegal aliens is simply outrageous pandering; illegals were specifically excluded in the bill. With respect to the CBO study, I find it appalling that you would choose to ignore the effect of acquiring insurance coverage to the millions of currently uncovered children while worrying that many lower-income families currently paying out-of-pocket for insurance premiums would gain a benefit from the government. Apparently in your opinion only families making over $250,000 should receive substantial government benefits. The issue of fiscal instability in 2012 is irrelevant and easily correctable between now and then. I can only hope that you won't be around in Congress by then to make the same mistakes.