Keith Dveirin is a Tucson pediatrician and president of the Arizona chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

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The Bush administration announced new rules that will require many children to go without health insurance for one year before they will be eligible to enroll in the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, known in Arizona as KidsCare.

This new rule should be met with outrage by all. It is a draconian measure (conveniently announced while Congress was not in session), and it benefits no one except the health insurance industry.

Requiring children to "go bare" without insurance for one year before they are eligible for coverage under SCHIP means more children will go without needed health services. Everyone knows that insurance premiums have skyrocketed in recent years, and for many families the premiums are now unaffordable. That's if they can even get insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

When these families can no longer afford to pay these premiums, they now will have no option but to add their children to the ranks of the uninsured.

SCHIP programs like KidsCare provide affordable health insurance for working families. All families pay monthly insurance premiums. The programs help children stay healthy by providing preventive services like immunizations. They also help keep children out of emergency rooms and hospitals.

A recent study of Arizona children reported in the journal Pediatrics showed that for every 1,000 children enrolled in AHCCCS (the state Medicaid program) and KidsCare, there were 300 fewer ER visits and 1,000 fewer hospital days per year. This resulted in a communitywide medical-cost savings of more than $2,000 per year per child enrolled.

The new rules are particularly ironic in light of information just released by the U.S. Census Bureau showing that the number of uninsured Americans increased by 2.2 million in 2006, bringing the ranks of the uninsured up to 47 million.

In particular, 93 percent of the newly uninsured are in families earning over $50,000 a year. It is exactly the children in these families whom SCHIP is trying to expand to cover, and that the new rules are specifically targeting to prevent their enrollment.

Just as the number of uninsured children in working families is increasing, the Bush administration is trying to make it harder for them to be covered under SCHIP.

When George W. Bush first ran for president, he billed himself as a "compassionate conservative." However, the administration's new rules on SCHIP eligibility are short on compassion. Instead, they place the multibillion-dollar profits of the health insurance industry ahead of the health of our children. This is a shame we should not accept.