The advocates of government-funded health care are (repeatedly, pleadingly, as though they are in some weakened, minority status) urging doctors and everyone with an eye to see or ear to hear to let our legislators know that we, too, want government to grow, to own medical care, and to tax us and regulate us out of business, please.
I don't feel that it's a bad thing for SCHIP to stay the same size or even to shrink. Somehow that thought never occurred to the AMA, the Kaiser Foundation, or the New England Journal of Medicine, who published a free editorial and audio clip entitled "No Child Left Uncovered."
The problem is that the bills and regulations have become so cumbersome that no one really knows what is in them, and there are so many interdependencies that we are told the whole house of cards will fall if the big budget is not passed.
From the American Academy of Family Physician's news service, "This Just In,"
House and Senate members are committed to providing positive physician payment updates in 2008 and 2009 but the question is how that will be accomplished.
"The House negotiators are adamant they are not going to have another opportunity to address the SGR in any real way before the end of the (fiscal) year -- that (SCHIP) is the only opportunity," said Burke. "The Senate seems to feel it can get a payment provision together by the end of the fiscal year when they are passing their appropriations bills or tax bills."
Without congressional reauthorization, SCHIP will expire on Sept. 30. Congress, for its part, will have a hard time reauthorizing the program by the Sept. 30 deadline, and as a result, congressional members are likely to extend the deadline for the program's reauthorization.
As you can see from the images at the top of this post, SCHIP hasn't changed the coverage of children over the 200% of poverty level and the current House bill will allow decreases in physician payments (edit - and the proposed expansion by the House bill would increase payments).
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