After all, isn't a cut-off of 250% of the poverty line sufficient?

The Bush administration, engaged in a battle with Congress over whether a popular children's health insurance program should be expanded, has announced new policies that will make it harder for states to insure all but the lowest-income children.

New administrative hurdles, which state health officials were told about late last week, are aimed at preventing parents with private insurance for their children from availing of the government-subsidized State Children's Health Insurance Program. But Democrats and children's advocates said that the announcement will jeopardize coverage for children whose parents work at jobs that do not provide employer-paid insurance.

Under the new policy, a state seeking to enroll a child whose family earns more than 250 percent of the poverty level -- or $51,625 for a family of four -- must first ensure that the child is uninsured for at least one year. The state must also demonstrate that at least 95 percent of children from families making less than 200 percent of the poverty level have been enrolled in the children's health insurance program or Medicaid -- a sign-up rate that no state has yet managed.

These and other steps must be implemented within a year, Dennis G. Smith, director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, advised state health officials in a letter on Friday.

As written, the current legislation could allow families making over $82,000 -- 400% of the poverty level for a family of 4 -- to enroll their kids in the program. And without the changes being implemented here, the law would also allow/encourage parents to dump the health insurance they are paying for through an employer plan and shift the burden to the taxpayers. After all, the reauthorization legislation will declare 75% of American families to be "poor" for purposes of the program.

Now, if we can just find a way to keep illegal immigrant kids from getting the benefits, eliminating one more incentive for folks to jump the border.

What I find particularly interesting, though, is that the Democrats are complaining that folks they call "wealthy" when they got tax cuts pushed by the Bush Administration in 2001 are now considered "poor" when the Democrats want to expand government-funded insurance. Setting aside the hypocrisy of the Democrats (which is never in short supply), could it be that they simply don't like folks to be able to choose how they spend their ow money, and prefer for the government to decide how to spend it for them?

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