Who knew you could do this?

Reporting on S-chip has taught me so much about procedural tactics, it's kind of scary.

This week was no exception. Bush decided on Friday, after business hours, while Congress is in recess, that he is going to make it virtually impossible for any state to enroll children in S-chip if their families earn more than 250% of the federal poverty level. Under his news rules, if states want to insure children in families earning above 250%, they must:

• Enroll 95% of eligible children in families under 200% of the poverty level (This is impossible. No state does it.);
• Ensure that children in families over 250% are uninsured for a year before enrolling them;
• Charge kids in families over 250% premiums and copays at the same rates as private insurance;
• Ensure that the percentage of children enrolled in private insurance plans doesn't drop by more than 2% (to make sure that employees aren't dropping their private insurance left-and-right to run on over to public assistance, the Republicans' anti-Christ); and
• Create mechanisms to ensure that employers don't create policies that encourage employees to switch to public programs.

While it probably goes without saying, I think this new policy is stupid. Yes, I suppose Bush is technically within his rights to create it ... it just seems unnecessarily cruel to set states up for failure, and in turn, children. It really bugs me in its hypocrisies. Bush expects (or maybe he doesn't?) states to now strive for enrolling 95% of all eligible children at 200%, the law's "original intent" or whatever, but under Bush's SCHIP proposal, there wouldn't be enough money to pay for them long-term. What's the point of bringing children into the program, if two years down the line, you are going to have to kick them out when the program runs out of funding? In essence, he basically set up that rule to prevent states from covering children above 250%. Someone never told Bush "honesty is the best policy."

Obviously he can't tell the truth about what he's doing, though. He would sound like an asshole. Which I think perfectly describes what he just did, denying care to children and putting more burdens on states. He is being so incredibly inflexible about everything that is S-chip.

Real reporters' coverage available here and here and here.