Spoiled Rotten

AS part of the 1997 budget deal with President Clinton, Republicans passed the so-called Kid-Care bill to provide federal support for children’s health insurance at the state level. An amalgam of proposals introduced by Sens. Tom Daschle (D., N.D.), Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), and the tag team of Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) and Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.), the final bill (officially called the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP) authorized $48 billion over the next ten years in federal grants to states.

Because most poor children were already eligible for Medicaid, KidCare seemed just a way to expand government-provided health insurance to middle-income working families and thus a substantial defeat for conservatives. But Republican defenders of the budget deal put a positive spin on KidCare, insisting that, unlike previous entitlement programs, it allowed tremendous flexibility at the state level and could be used to fund relatively free-market conservative ideas such as vouchers, tax credits, and Medical Savings Accounts.

About the Author

John Hood

John Hood is president of the John William Pope Foundation, a North Carolina-based grantmaker, and co-founder of Freedom Conservatism.

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AS part of the 1997 budget deal with President Clinton, Republicans passed the so-called Kid-Care bill to provide federal support for children’s health insurance at the state level. An amalgam of proposals introduced by Sens. Tom Daschle (D., N.D.), Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), and the tag team of Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) and Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.), the final bill (officially called the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP) authorized $48 billion over the next ten years in federal grants to states.

Because most poor children were already eligible for Medicaid, KidCare seemed just a way to expand government-provided health insurance to middle-income working families and thus a substantial defeat for conservatives. But Republican defenders of the budget deal put a positive spin on KidCare, insisting that, unlike previous entitlement programs, it allowed tremendous flexibility at the state level and could be used to fund relatively free-market conservative ideas such as vouchers, tax credits, and Medical Savings Accounts.