WASHINGTON What would a national lurch toward socialized medicine look like?

If the answer is anything like the plan to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by a whopping $35 billion, America and especially Virginia will pay a hefty price. That's why I am calling on President Bush to veto the recently passed SCHIP reauthorization bill once it arrives at his desk.

Throughout this year's debate the bill's supporters boasted of insuring millions of additional "poor" children -- a noble goal that Democrats and Republicans share. But this particular measure goes far beyond helping the poor. The result is a bloated bill that would undermine the continued development of a robust private health-care system and slap Virginians with exorbitant tax hikes to pay for it.

Supporters of the bill hope their melodious rhetoric will raise a smokescreen to block scrutiny of its misleading provisions. Once the contents of this Trojan horse are revealed, however, the public will see nothing but a middle-class entitlement that threatens to be a catalyst for even more government involvement in our health care.

IT DOESN'T have to be this way. When SCHIP was created in 1997, the goal was to bring much-needed health care to a vulnerable group: low-income children who were not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid yet could not afford their own insurance. The current bill, however, removes the provision that forces SCHIP to cover 95 percent of low-income children first. That's bad news since a number of states recently have sought to increase the qualifying income limits for SCHIP to include children whose parents make up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Under this type of plan, a family with two cars, a comfortable home, and income in excess of $80,000 per year may now enter a "low-income" government program for their children's health care.

That family of four earning $80,000 is in the upper half of the national income distribution and closer to the top tax bracket than the middle. The Heritage Foundation recently demonstrated the irrationality of this bill, finding that more than 70,000 families in America would be eligible to place their children in "low-income" SCHIP health insurance while at the same time being forced to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax, known as the "millionaire's tax."

Only in Washington can Congress pass legislation that would offer to provide taxpayer-funded, government-run health care to "low-income" families who pay the millionaire's tax. Sound ridiculous? It is.

Such an expansion is a troubling reversal of the efficiency gains and lower prices that competition among private insurers has provided. Government subsidization of a less efficient government plan like SCHIP would pull some middle-class buyers out of the marketplace, resulting in less competition and higher prices for the vast majority of Americans. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that some 2 million people are expected to shift from private insurance to Washington-controlled government-run care. That's 2 million people receiving more expensive care on the government dole, and untold millions having to pay more for private care.

The expanded government role, of course, comes at a steep cost. No one will feel the effects of the tax hike of nearly 150 percent on tobacco products more acutely than the citizens of the commonwealth. The industry directly employs more than 6,000 people in the Richmond area alone. From box makers and truck drivers to convenience store owners and grocers, this roughly $7-billion-per-year tax hike will send tremors through our local economy.

EVEN WORSE, this federal initiative will draw indispensable resources away from our communities. The CBO expects this new tax to deprive state and local governments of over $1 billion in revenue, money that would normally fund our growing school systems and improve our ailing roads.

All of these factors serve to fatten the government where it is not needed. Once middle-income children are covered until their 20s -- and Medicare awaits all Americans at 65 -- proponents of socialized medicine have only to squeeze toward the middle to realize their ultimate goal: bureaucrat-run and Washington-controlled health care. There's a far better way to bring health insurance to our nation's most susceptible children. We don't have to undermine the private health-care system that expands our options and improves our care.

President Bush's veto pen is the only thing that stands in the way of the coming onslaught. For the sake of America -- and Virginia in particular -- I hope he will follow through on his threat to use it.
Eric Cantor represents Virginia's 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House.