Framing the Debate on S-CHIP

As everyone expected, S-CHIP passed in the House yesterday, and by a pretty wide margin:

Last night, 45 Republicans voted for the bill — more than Republican supporters had expected and a sharp jump from the five who supported the original House version in August. Eight Democrats voted against it.

Not a veto-proof majority — so it doesn’t look like it will actually become law any time soon — but one that suggests how weak the resistance was to this bill. This is not encouraging, of course, but it’s also not that surprising. Due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to the war and Bush’s dismal popularity ratings, economic conservatives have simply been unable to reframe the debate as one about the whether taxpayers ought to fund the nation’s health care. As the New York Times reported yesterday:

Administration officials said they were concerned that the White House was being hurt by televised news reports that portrayed the fight as a struggle between Mr. Bush and poor children, rather than as a philosophical debate over the role of government in health care.

Meanwhile, Democrats have rather successfully painted this issue in terms of denying care to sick kids, even to the point where some Republicans have bought into the logic.

Moderate Republicans openly fretted yesterday that the White House had made the House GOP its firewall, to their political detriment. “I’m a little baffled as to why the Bush people picked this issue to fight it out on,” said Rep. Ray LaHood (Ill.). “It’s very sensitive. It’s about kids. Who’s against kids’ health care?”

The questio, of course, isn’t who’s against kids’ health care–no one’s against it–the question is, instead, who’s going to pay for it? Unfortunately, that’s not a question that many folks seem to be interested in asking right now.