Through the back door

If you ever saw George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” or any of its many sequels, you know that it’s not enough merely to nail some boards across the front door. The zombies will break in through the windows! Through the cellar! Anywhere! Like Democrats trying to bring in nationalized health insurance through the back door!

In this case, by “expanding eligibility” for a program which they swore up and down would be “only for poor kids, honest.”

In Washington, three Democratic governors told Congress on Tuesday that the Bush administration has made it virtually impossible for them to expand coverage under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to more moderate-income children, as they want to.

The governors said their states seek to enroll tens of thousands of children in the government-subsidized program because families earning $44,000 to $52,800 cannot afford private health insurance, but those efforts are threatened by an August directive from the Bush administration.

The directive said states must cover the vast majority of the poorest children already eligible for government coverage — 95 percent — before moving on to enroll higher-income children. That only makes sense.

But Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick accused the administration of reneging on its commitment to let the state cover families with incomes up to $52,800 for a family of three. Under the guidelines, the income limit is $44,000 for new enrollees.

Congress has tried unsuccessfully to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Last year, lawmakers failed to override two vetoes from President Bush. The vetoes blocked a $35 billion expansion of federal spending on the program over five years, which would have brought total spending to at least $60 billion.

The president said the expansion would have encouraged too many families to drop their existing private coverage so they could get free coverage from the government.

Duh. That’s precisely what many redistributionist Democrats want.

To say families declaring $44,000 to $52,800 in taxable income can’t afford medical care or private health insurance — regardless of the fact such coverage is often offered by employers — means one of two things: Either the congressmen disagree with these families’ spending priorities, or the very state governments now protesting in Washington have indeed eliminated low-cost insurance options by enacting so many “coverage mandates” that consumers are no longer allowed to buy a high-deductible Christmas tree without all the lights and tinsel.

Let’s keep this simple. SCHIP was supposed to be for poor children. Now many Democrats want to re-define a family earning up to $52,800 as “poor” — while Democrats already contend anyone earning $75,000 is too “rich” to get a tax rebate.

Pretty soon the only people not covered by this program will be Rotary Club members between the ages of 45 and 50 in Kansas, Nebraska and portions of South Dakota.

Watch out! There! The kitchen window!