SCHIP and Crowd-Out

Hey Democrats! News that SCHIP pushes children towards public insurance and away from private insurance is a feature, not a bug. Do not be afraid when Peter Orszag explains that "the uninsured are swimming around in the same pool as the insured. It is very hard to reach a little net into that pool and just pick out the uninsured,. You almost inevitably will pick up some of each. This is a necessary trade-off that is involved in any significant effort to reduce the ranks of the uninsured." That is a good trade-off. It brings children who are both uninsured, and whose parents find SCHIP more affordable and stable. It is exactly what we want to happen.

And let's make one thing clear: There is no reason every kid in this country shouldn't receive guaranteed, high-quality, publicly-provided health care. You say that in every stump speech. Start believing it. It is not your job to preserve the number of children enrolled in Aetna. It is your job to make sure that no children lack coverage. A public system can achieve that vision. As we've seen, a private system cannot. You need not protect something that offends your most basic principles.