Ensuring a healthy beginning in the lives of the nation's children is an appropriate mission for the government, and the current effort to give healthcare access to more of our youngest citizens demonstrates how much this idea resonates with Americans.

Political will has been strong enough that Congress has forged a compromise bill expanding the federal State Children's Health Insurance Program to 4 million more kids from lower- and some middle-income households.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has pledged to veto the measure, arguing that too many newly qualified families would simply stop paying their premiums and enroll in the publicly funded program.

There's undoubtedly a political agenda as well: depriving the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill of bragging rights for hammering out an accord on such an essential issue.

Regardless, a veto seems all but assured, so health advocates need to rally more support from members of the House, where votes for an override have fallen short.

There are certainly many families already paying private premiums who would enroll in SCHIP, especially in Hawai'i, where most employers are mandated to carry part of the insurance cost. Gerald Russo, a University of Hawai'i economist, has used Census Bureau figures up to 2005 to estimate that only about 7 percent of the expanded program benefits group are currently uninsured. He estimates that roughly 60 to 70 percent of the newly enrolled could be refugees from a privately paid plan.

What's missing is clear information about the impact of expanded children's health insurance, for which the Legislature already has allotted the state matching funds. Wisely, UH is seeking a private grant to study this issue — to learn, for starters, whether beneficiaries could easily afford insurance otherwise.

Many middle-income families, in Hawai'i and elsewhere, are struggling to cover the costs of family essentials and could use the assurance that their keiki can get healthcare.

Ultimately, it's cheaper to buy health insurance for children, because the public ends up covering their healthcare anyway. Uninsured kids often turn up in emergency rooms, where costs are sky-high.

This is why even some conservative politicians have supported the bill, and why the SCHIP bill deserves a strong, final push: This safety net for the kids makes sense fiscally, and is good social policy.