The Census Bureau has reported that more Americans have health insurance than it had previously reported. It says about 1.8 million more people had health insurance in 2005 than it reported last August, bringing the uninsured number down to 44.8 million.

It turns out that the undercount was largely for dependents. Our colleague Doug Badger points out that these new numbers should be discussed in the context of the debate over expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program since the new figures now show that the percentage of children who lacked coverage in 2005 is actually quite low by historic standards.

Here are the numbers (in 000s), according to Doug:

Total Uninsured

2001: 41,207 (14.6%)

2002: 43,574 (15.2%)

2003: 44,961 (15.6%)

2004: 43,498 (14.9%)

2005: 44,815 (15.3%)

Uninsured kids

2001: 8,509 (11.7%)

2002: 8,531 (11.6%)

2003: 8,373 (11.4%)

2004: 7,721 (10.5%)

2005: 8,050 (10.9%)

In light of this, is a $50 billion expansion of SCHIP really a good idea? And even more, is it really a good idea to expand SCHIP to "children" as old as 25 and to kids in families making $83,000 a year, as Sen. Clinton and Rep. Dingell have proposed?

Better policy would be for states to focus on making sure that the lower-income kids already eligible for SCHIP are covered. Then any extra money that Congress puts on the table could be spent providing help for other groups where the uninsured rate is many times higher - including lower-income working Americans.

The president's health initiative would be a much better investment in restoring equity to the health care system and expanding coverage more efficiently.