A change in course?

More specifically, a change in course of the State Children's Health Insurance program?

According to the Wall Street Journal article, "Republicans Hit Health-Care Rift," President Bush’s 2008 budget will not "cover the cost of S-chip's current enrollment, and program coverage for adults would be rolled back in about a dozen states." Originally, the program had allowed states to enroll the parents of children of working families just above the poverty line in order to encourage uninsured children to join the program. Of course, this allowance was implemented by President Bush after being criticized during the 2000 election for the slowness in helping the uninsured children in his home state get affordable health care coverage. In addition, Democrats want to increase the funds allocated to this program this coming October when the program is due for an extension --but President Bush wants to cut back and promote private- sector insurance alternatives.

Granted, as with everything in healthcare, the program costs keep increasing every year. However, the solution is not to take these funds away from the uninsured children. Perhaps the individual states could contribute some more (say 50%?) to help pay for these programs (perhaps with more state taxes??)--states such as Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado, California, Mississippi which are the top 10 states with a high percentage of uninsured children.

Whichever the solution, the bottom line is that the children should not be the ones to suffer.