I‘ve been eager to draw something on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program debate for a littlewhile now, and it’s taken me this long because I wanted to have a good understanding about it before I came to any conclusions. After a lot of reading and a few conversations with people whose opinion I respect, I finally feel comfortable drawing a cartoon on the subject.
Before anything else, I need to say that I think every child in America should have health insurance. Regardless of opinion about universal health care for adults, it’s morally imperative to ensure all of our children grow up healthy. That being said, the proposed expansion of SCHIP is the wrong path toward that goal. First, a fact: Low-income people are more likely to smoke than those who earn higher wages. Because the SCHIP proposal relies on a cigarette tax increase, it will force low-income citizens to shoulder the burden of not only their coverage, but also that of the middle-income enrollees included under the expansion. In effect, the backers of this measure are hurting the poor rather than helping them. On top of that, if you raise the price of cigarettes, less people will smoke … which means less money for SCHIP with each passing year. What does that set Americans up for? More tax increases.
Children should have affordable health insurance, but this is not the way.
