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Mainstream media coverage of President Bush’s veto of the popular SCHIP legislation, failed to fact-check the president. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times adopted a less than informative political process framework, quoting bickering Congressional Democrats, Republicans and White House officials, while ignoring the inaccuracies in Bush’s reasons for vetoing SCHIP.
- New York Times: Noting that the veto “brought immediate statements of anger from Democrats,” the Times explained that “Mr. Bush and his backers argue that the bill would steer the program away from its core purpose of providing insurance for poor children and toward covering children from middle-class families.
- Washington Post: Similarly, before regurgitating Bush’s veto explanation, the Post conceded that “in vetoing the bill to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, the president finds himself isolated politically” but he “appears to have the votes to sustain his veto.”
- Los Angeles Times: “Bush has criticized the legislation as too costly, and complained that it would undermine private insurance by extending benefits to some middle-class families at the expense of the poor. He has also questioned the decision by Congress to use tobacco taxes to pay for children’s healthcare, saying cigarette taxes are not a reliable source of permanent funding, since fewer people are smoking.” Without challenging these claims, the paper resorts to covering the political bickering. “Republicans accused Democrats of politicizing a program that until now has enjoyed support from both parties.”
Despite Bush’s claims, however, “the overwhelming majority of children who would gain health coverage under the emerging agreement are precisely the low-income children the President says he wants to focus on.” A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the SCHIP bill “found that at least 85 percent of the otherwise-uninsured children who would gain coverage under the bill have incomes below states’ current SCHIP eligibility limits;” two-thirds of “those who gain SCHIP coverage…would otherwise be uninsured.”
Since SCHIP needs “14 billion more over the next five years to keep covering current enrollees, let alone reach more of the nation’s nearly 9 million uninsured children,” Bush’s willingness to pony up just $5 billion is “tantamount to a cut.” Bush’s plan of providing “tax breaks for the purchase of private insurance,” would cover less than one-quarter of the uninsured, according to an analysis by MIT economist Jonathan Gruber.
As for the alleged tax increase on cigarettes, a recent study found that “higher state taxes on smokers have produced sharp declines in consumption.” Economist Frank Chaloupka of the University of Illinois predicts that “smoking will drop 6% if the 61-cent-per-pack tax hike is passed.” “I expect a bigger drop than almost anything we’ve seen before,” he says.
By focusing on the politics of Bush’s veto and leaving the president’s reasons unchallenged, the mainstream press adds legitimacy to Bush’s reasoning and provides the administration with an uncritical platform for its spin.
As a libertarian conservative I agree with Bush for this veto, because I’m against almost all government spending. However I don’t know why Bush decided to be a fiscal conservative now. He has drastically increased rhe size of the federal government with things like No Child Left Behind. Clinton was more fiscally conservative than Bush. Bush is just playing politics, maybe forcing the Democrats to fight this instead of Iraq, or perhaps Bush just hates kids.