Jon Kyl, October 29, 2007

Under a Republican-led Congress in 1997, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was created to help states provide health coverage to low-income children. Ten years after its creation, the program needs to be legally reauthorized, and congressional Republicans wrote a bill to do exactly that.

Democrats, unfortunately, saw an opportunity to play politics and expand the program to cover adults and children from higher income families -- many who already have access to, or are currently covered by, private health insurance.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that under the Democrats’ bill, more than two million Americans would abandon their private health insurance in favor of the new, government coverage. For every two individuals who enroll in SCHIP or Medicaid, one individual would drop private coverage. This isn’t good policy, and it’s certainly not the intent of the program.

Moreover, some see the Democrats’ proposal as a veiled attempt to move toward Washington-run health care (by getting people off of their private insurance and onto the government rolls).

In addition to reauthorizing (not expanding) SCHIP, there are other things we can do now to better provide health coverage access to those Americans who are currently uninsured. For example:

1. Americans should be able to keep health coverage when they change jobs. In order to make this concept more viable, the tax code should be reformed -- without raising any taxes -- to give individuals and families who purchase their own their own health insurance the same tax benefits as we give to those who obtain their health insurance through their employer. Then, if people change jobs and choose to obtain their insurance coverage on their own instead, they will be better able to afford it because of the tax relief for that purpose.

2. We can also remove the legal barriers that effectively deny small businesses the insurance deals available to large corporations. One way to do this is to allow small businesses to join together and bargain for better pricing. More than one million Americans would benefit if we passed this simple reform.

3. The quality of care can be improved and costs lowered if the health system better utilizes information technology. There is no reason so many of our medical records and information should be kept on paper. That leads to far too much inefficiency and opportunities for errors.

4. We can drive down the cost of health insurance if we allow it to be purchased from insurers operating in any state in the nation, rather than just the state in which the buyers live, just as we do already with many other types of insurance.

5. Millions of Americans save money every year on health care costs by using Flexible Spending Accounts. FSAs allow Americans to direct a portion of their income into pre-tax accounts that can be used to pay for medical expenses. Unfortunately, under the current system, participants lose any funds left in their account at the end of the year. We should end this "use-it-or-lose-it" policy that prevents patients from rolling over their accounts each year.

6. The rising costs of medical liability insurance for physicians and other health-care providers is, in some cases, making it too expensive for them to continue offering care to patients. And much of this cost is simply passed onto patients. Tort reform would decrease the number of frivolous law suits against providers and help to bring down health care costs and increase access.

There is no question that America faces a problem with rising health care costs. And I believe we are obligated to make it easer for the uninsured to have access to and afford health insurance. As the above examples show, we do not need to move the nation towards a Washington-run health care system or undermine the doctor-patient relationship. We can preserve what is good in our system while fixing the problems in a pragmatic way.

We don’t need another election to solve problems, just the will to put politics aside and act.

Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican, represents Arizona in the U.S. Senate. He serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.