I apologize if our focus on SCHIP seems tedious, but it really is a crucially important fight over the direction of our health care system. The Galen Institute logo is all about people who fall into the gap between being eligible for public programs like Medicaid and SCHIP and being able to afford private health insurance. If Congress were to reauthorize the program to serve children in this gap, the president has said he would sign the bill in a minute. So clearly the debate is about more than that.

I had a letter to the editor in The Washington Post on Wednesday trying to clarify some of the facts about the program. I believe that the bill does provide strong incentives for states to use SCHIP money to expand this government program to cover children in middle-income families. And the higher up the income scale you go, the more likely you are to crowd out private coverage.

In addition, advocates of expanding the program say that SCHIP coverage is "private insurance." But The Heritage Foundation explains that isn't the same as the private insurance many children already have.

"Although private insurance companies often administer benefits under SCHIP as well as Medicaid, the government largely controls both the design and financing of those benefits. In effect, the individual states contract out administration of a government-designed plan to private insurance companies." They conclude, and cite government data as validation, that, "children enrolled in Medicaid and/or SCHIP don't get the same access or quality of care as kids in traditional private insurance plans."

And Republicans are taking a lot of heat over the Democratic Radio Address last Saturday featuring a 12-year-old boy, Graeme Frost, who was seriously injured with his family in a car accident and had to be hospitalized for five months.

He argues that SCHIP saved his life. What I hear in this moving talk is a testimonial about the quality of the U.S. health care system and the value of health insurance to pay for catastrophic medical expenses like this.

The debate we should be having is over how to make sure as many people as possible have health insurance to protect them and their families if they have major medical expenses after a serious illness or accident like this.

And this is the question that will be facing us in 2008. Should that protection be supported by tax dollars through government programs like SCHIP or through private insurance, with new subsidies to help those at the lower-end of the income scale afford coverage?