Are tax credits a realistic alternative to public health-care coverage for uninsured children in working families?
Yes. In contrast to “free” care for the truly poor, tax credits can be designed to help many working families pay for health insurance. Specifically, the “SCHIP Plus” tax-credit proposal, developed by The Heritage Foundation, would target children in families with incomes two to three times higher than the federal poverty line. A strong argument could be made that these families, earning between $41,000 and $62,000 a year, should be responsible for paying something toward the cost of health coverage for their children. The question of how much is negotiable, and there are a variety of ways to structure a tax credit to address it. Under “SCHIP Plus,” families would receive a refundable, advanceable tax credit of $1,200 per child—a figure based roughly on the average cost of insuring a child. A more generous $1,400 credit is proposed for these working families in the More Children, More Choices Act of 2007 (S.2193/H.R. 3888), introduced Oct. 19 by Sens. Mel Martinez (R-FL) and George Voi
