"Cruel veto"?

It's bad enough that we HAVE TO pay for stupid people's abortions but now we'll have to pay for this? This is incremental socialism. It's not the government's role to provide healthcare.

 What's missing from the WSJ comments is where does responsibility come in.  As Michelle pointed out, these parents are not attempting to find employment in places where they could have health insurance for their children.  I read, in E.J. Dionne's editorial, that the left is putting out the figure that it costs $12,000 a year for employee provided health care.  Most of us, that have employee provided health care, know that it's less than half that, depending on how much of the tab the employer picks up.  These parents never put them in the position of having the employer pick up any of the tab, which leads me ask, "What is their responsibility in all this?" 

As a family, my wife and I have been in the position where we took jobs to provide health care for our children, an expense that, had we decided to defer it would have been of great benefit to us.  Conservatives could have been better at questioning that aspect of the case, without getting into the personal.  Should we be responsible for people that choose to work part-time, have 4 children, and refuse to take responsiblity for their health care? 

The obvious solution, to this problem, is to remove the employer from the health care equation.  This would allow everyone to purchase their health insurance on the open market,  thus making it more affordable for people working in places that don't provide health insurance as a benefit.  The problem is that no one wants a free market in health insurance, because they know it would work and the immense profit would slowly be removed from it. 

If the Republicans don't start looking at this approach, we are all going to pay.  If we end up with Hillary Care, the price will be far more than a free market health care plan and the benefits will be less. If the government plan comes in first, it will be too late to implement a free market approach.   Republicans better smarten up. 

Democrats: Specializing in "high tech lynching" since 1987.

As for the pros and cons of the SCHIP program, I won't comment here, because that's too long a discussion, and others can discuss it better than I can. What's interesting is the manipulations of the media. The WSJ is one example, but there are plenty of others.

EJ Dionne's article on the subject was simply ridiculous. It was thoroughly disingenuous, snarky, and condescending. Dionne argued that the Frost family did everything that conservatives advised (like owning their own home and starting their own small business), and now conservatives are penalizing them for that.

• No, they're being criticized for not buying health insurance when they should have. It was imprudent for them to invest in commercial properties without having first taken care of their own insurance. 
• Does Dionne really want to argue that starting your own business is a conservative thing (i.e., liberals would advise otherwise?
• By the way, lost in all the buzz is that this was a program passed by the GOP in the first place. The veto is about expanding the program at the cost of $35 billion, all without any means-testing. That would mean that we would be encouraging more people to act unwisely, like the Frosts did, to the extra cost of $35 billion.

The Frost children are covered under the program and still will be under the continued program.

As pointed out no body has attacked the children and if someone were to find an example even in the comments on the blogs involved then that could be from a very out of the norm person with their belief or a new poster that may have suspect motives.

What is being addressed is the chain of events that got the provided example where they are and how expansion furthur up the economic viability chain makes even less sense to argue the point of economic necessity.

What has also only been addressed by a few and mainly in the comment sections is that the SCHIP program really doesn't have an exit strategy.

The only way out is for the illness to reach final remission no longer requiring treatment. Any thing else presents a high barrier to the cost of exiting the program.

The Frost family is now trapped by financial caps that they had functionally chosen in advance by themselves for years by their own admissions. Now they are by mandate. If they exceed those caps they are tossed from the program and must assume to cost of care.

Sure they can't easily get insurance after the fact. But to not have insurance prior with four children is playing financial Russian Roulette.

When I grew up if nothing else all children in school were offered modest coverage for childhood ailments and were restrictive for other things out of the norm , but by doing that the cost was low to purchase.

One potential exit strategy is a partnership between commercial insurance and the SCHIP program allowing purchase of commercial insurance with the pre existing 1 year waiting period.

However once purchased the commercial insurance covers all issues not directly attributable to the condition and the SCHIP program only covers the treatment related to the pre existing condition.

During the transition if the commercial insurance is obtained, the financial cap is adjusted on proof of insurance for an appropriate amount of time to allow the exit transition to occur.

So for example in the Frost case they would be allowed to increase their income to cover the cost of the new insurance and once the pre existing window had passed all coverage would revert to the commercial insurance and the relationship with the SCHIP program would come to an end.

Programs vary on what the use to measure eligibiltiy. That can pick from the range of financial measures such as Gross Total Income, Adjusted Gross Income and Net Taxable Income.

As anyone who prepared their own taxes would know these numbers reflect vastly different amounts.

Add that to whether or not assets are put into the mix and you can see why their are issues with the system.

Also each state tries to weight the implementation of their program to give the most benefits to their perceived greatest impact amoung those who qualify for the program.