Amid the debate over the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, author and Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney asks the question, “Does SCHIP insure kids or subsidize savvy HMOs?”:

[W]hile Democrats are dragging children to the White House for photo ops, as if the children are the primary constituency of this bill, federal lobbying records tell a different tale.

Lobbying records from the first half of 2007 show that the health care industry spent more than $227 million lobbying Washington. Congressional Quarterly Healthbeat News reported last month: “What’s behind health care lobbyists’ spending frenzy? Most signs point to … SCHIP.”

Sure enough, the biggest lobbyists in the industry all support the Democratic bill. America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the trade association for HMOs, supports the bill, as do its biggest members, such as Blue Cross Blue Shield.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association (PhRMA), one of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists, is also behind the bill. So is the American Medical Association.

Because the details of any substantial bill or regulation will be complex, the mainstream media will always portray the debate as a battle between the interested parties. In this case, the official storyline is that it’s poor children against a president overly concerned about the boogie man “government-run health care.”

But poor children don’t have clout on Capitol Hill. They’re not the reason this bill got 68 votes in the Senate and 265 votes in the House.

It’s got to be nice [for] the Democrats now. You get to do a favor for the HMOs, and everyone’s convinced it’s “for the children.”

I include the nation’s governors — who are always in favor of more federal money — in the bootleggers category.

Kudos to Tim Carney for reporting what less-rigorous reporters will not. (Why, oh, why can’t we have a better press corps?)