A battle is brewing in the Congress over SCHIP, a program designed to cover the health care costs of the nation’s poor children. Democrats want to expand coverage to include more children, often from higher income brackets. The bill just passed in the House 225-204. And, surprise surprise, there is intense opposition from the Republicans. Was it not the GOP that shuffled through a Medicare plan for the nation’s older citizens, putting lots of money in the health care industry’s pockets (they wrote the bill)? So, I can’t really understand the opposition to insuring the other vulnerable portion of our population.

“The real plan here is to set the stage for a movement of the next gigantic step in the direction of what should be called Hillary-care — national socialized medicine,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-California.

Lame duck President Bush has already threatened to veto both House and Senate versions of the bill, sighting the high costs of such programs. With war in Iraq having cost $448.5 billion at the time of this writing, I don’t think Bush has any room to talk. $448.5 billion dollars could insure 268.5 million children for a year. And with about 75 million children under 18 in America, that would be insurance for each of them for 4 years. So I ask, where are this president’s priorities?