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Ending months of disagreement over the breadth and extent of SCHIP, President Bush has signed legislation that would extend the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Unfortunately, as yet nothing has been done to change the nature of family health insurance as a whole.

At the Washington Post, the President's decision to sign this new piece of legislation is based upon the notion that "the program will cover families that currently fall into a coverage gap - earning too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private insurance." While Democrats are unhappy that more children didn't get coverage, the issue that really needs to be addressed is this:

How can we make family health insurance more affordable, so that "gap" can go away?

There's been much talk from next year's presidential hopefuls about how to make medical coverage more affordable. But for the time being the truth remains that hard-working men and women aren't able to pay for family health insurance and support themselves at the same time. It's great that some children will be covered. It would be great if all children could be covered. But what about their parents?

Hopefully, change is on the way for our health care system. Until then, parents need to take good care of themselves, and get yearly checkups to prevent the kind of sicknesses that can be physically and financially devastating.