Gazette reported Bush's "$5 billion spending increase" for SCHIP, omitted CBO report that his plan would underfund program

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

In an article about support among the Republican candidates in Colorado's 5th Congressional District for President Bush's veto of a bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), The Gazette of Colorado Springs reported that “Bush has recommended a $5 billion spending increase” for SCHIP. However, the article did not note that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that Bush's proposal would underfund the program by $9 billion over five years.

An October 18 article in The Gazette of Colorado Springs reported that the three Republican candidates in Colorado's 5th Congressional District supported President Bush's veto of a bill that would expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), noting that “Bush has recommended a $5 billion spending increase” for the program. The Gazette, however, failed to point out that a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis found that Bush's expansion would underfund the program by $9 billion during a five-year period, as Colorado Media Matters has noted.

As the Gazette article, by Ed Sealover, reported, “An attempt to override President Bush's veto of more health insurance for children is dividing the GOP nationally, but not the three Republicans in next year's 5th Congressional District race.” The article further reported:

First-term Rep. Doug Lamborn and challengers Jeff Crank and Bentley Rayburn said the proposed expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program would move the country closer to socialized medicine.

They said the program designed to help poor children who do not qualify for Medicaid would grow so much under a bill approved by Congress that middle-class families would qualify for it.

Through SCHIP, the federal government and the states subsidize the cost of health coverage for families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance. Congress approved a $35 billion spending increase over five years. Bush has recommended a $5 billion spending increase. A vote is scheduled today in the U.S. House, and critics of the president are expected to fall short of the two-thirds support they need to override the veto.

The article omitted the fact that, according to the nonpartisan CBO, Bush's proposed “spending increase” for SCHIP would underfund the program. As Colorado Media Matters noted, per the funding levels set in the original SCHIP legislation, the program cost the federal government $5 billion in 2007. If this baseline level were preserved over the next five years, to 2012, SCHIP would receive $25 billion. In his fiscal year 2008 budget request released in February, Bush sought an increase of $5 billion over this period, for a total of $30 billion in funding. In May, the CBO estimated that “maintaining the states' current programs under SCHIP would require funding of $39 billion for the 2007-2012 period” -- meaning Bush's proposal would leave the program with a $9 billion shortfall over those five years.