It’s a good bet that no one among the White House press will ask the press secretary or the president about such a mundane subject as children’s health. And, indeed, no one has. Presumably that’s because they’re busy asking searching questions about other issues, or perhaps it’s because their own children have no problems getting health care.

So I will ask, for the question illustrates, among other things, why President Bush, despite setbacks on virtually every issue he’s touched, continues in his lame-duck years to make life difficult for his most moderate supporters and himself. Mr. President, I would ask, why do you continue to stick to your conservative ideology, even if it means cutting thousands of children off from a health care administered and supported by the states? Are your beliefs more important than health care for millions of American kids?

This is not as loaded as it sounds, for the president has (in the midst of so many other problems) inserted himself to oppose what should have been a routine congressional effort to re-authorize the widely popular State Children’s Health Program, or SCHIP, which expires Sept. 30. The program, run by the states, provides health care to 5 million uninsured children, many of them low income, but without health insurance because their parents have insufficient or no coverage and cannot afford or get more.

The re-authorization along the basic principle of providing coverage to uninsured children seemed like a done bipartisan deal in early July. It’s a popular program among lawmakers and governors of both parties. But many Democrats, with some Republican support, sought to increase funds by about $50 billion over five years, with money cut from the heavy government subsidies for the private Medicare Advantage program. That’s when Robert Pear reported in the New York Times, July 9, that the White House suddenly took steps “to slow momentum for the expansion of the program.”

The reasons, it turned out, were mostly ideological. The president had asked for $4.8 billion over the next five years but he wanted the care limited to what Ronald Reagan once called the “truly needy,” children in families who were near poor–with incomes less than 200 percent of poverty. That would have cut the funds in 17 states. But the president, hostile to Medicare and any government insurance, has proposed tax breaks to permit the uninsured buy insurance, although many don’t earn enough to pay taxes.

Pear reported that “the ideological battle” over the program epitomized the fundamental disagreement between Democrats (and moderate Republicans) and the president on the role of the federal government versus the market in virtually every activity, even the war. Allan Hubbard, assistant to the president for economic policy, told Congress that Bush’s objections to the expansion of SCHIP are based on his fear that it would lead to “a single-payer health care system with rationing and price controls.” Indeed, according to the Times, regional directors of the Department of Health and Human Services warned in letters to newspapers that expanding SCHIP would lead to “a government takeover of the health care marketplace.” Never mind that the president ignores the national groundswell of support for universal, government guaranteed health care. But then he’s been behind a number of curves lately.

Meanwhile, at this writing, the amount of expansion for the re-authorization remains uncertain. Interestingly, one of the most powerful players in the health care market place, the drug lobby, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, has been placing television ads supporting the re-authorization and expansion of SCHIP. PhaRMa knows the difference between ideology and business.