Bush's Budget Slashes Health Programs

In addition to lots of Budget gimmicks that lead to a supposedly balanced budget in 2012 (but deficits in nearly every year before or after), Bush's Proposed Budget would slash many domestic health programs. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities summarizes several:

• Funding for health care research and training — the budget category that includes the National Institutes of Health — would be cut by 8 percent, or $2.6 billion.
  
• Despite the fact that 5.6 million low-income children are uninsured today, the budget fails to provide sufficient funds to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program even to continue insuring the same number of children as the program insures today.
  
• Many of the proposed Medicaid cuts would essentially shift costs to states, likely leading many states to cut back Medicaid eligibility or restrict health care services for the low-income beneficiaries whom the program serves.
  
• The budget also would cut the Social Services Block Grant, which provides funds to states for basic services to vulnerable low-income children, seniors, and people with disabilities, by $4.4 billion over ten years, or nearly 30 percent in nominal dollars.

Here's the summary of Bush's proposed budget changes from Families USA:

The President’s budget proposal would cut health coverage for children in low- and moderate-income families. Instead of expanding health coverage to America’s 9 million uninsured children, the President proposes to reduce coverage in two ways.

First, the President’s proposed funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is inadequate to retain enrollment for the children who currently participate in the program. Not only will states be unable to enroll more children, but they will be forced to terminate coverage for hundreds of thousands of children, thereby consigning them to the ranks of the uninsured.

Second, the President’s proposal is designed to reduce SCHIP eligibility in 18 states where eligibility exceeds 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($34,340 in annual income for a family of three). It would jeopardize health coverage for many additional children.

It is short-sighted to limit assistance to children in families with less than $35,000 in income, especially since the cost of family insurance premiums now averages $12,000, more than one-third of their incomes.