Assbag of the Week - President George W. Bush
The State Children's Health Care Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a successful federal-state partnership that currently provides health insurance to about 6 million children whose parents make too much to qualify for health coverage under Medicaid, yet cannot afford private insurance.
Both the House and the Senate recently voted to expand the program's eligibility requirements and cover an additional 5.8 million kids; the expansion will be paid for by raising cigarette taxes.
Yesterday, President Bush vetoed this legislation.
Who's going to side with sick children to help override Bush's veto and obtain health insurance coverage for millions of kids?
Use this form to tell your rep in Congress - vote to expand SCHIP.
Or this form.
Or locally, let's make some phone calls.
Senator Andy McElhany: 303-866-4880
Representative Bob Gardner: 303-866-2191
Representative Lamborn: 202-225-4422
posted by kate @ 7:01 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Bush gets the award for the veto but Republicans standing up and saying that this is excessive spending that should be curtailed get a honorary mention (Fred Thompson is one of them -- and there are surely more out there)>
What should be a priority here? Tax cuts, a foreign war out of want and not necessity, excessive spending on national security at the local level with a bloated beauracratic office that doesn't work properly (Homeland security)... Or helping sick kids? Hmm... Where to cut the fat? decisions, decisions...
i think the republicans viewed this as excessive spending. supposedly (i didnt read the entire bill) the salary/income level would reach 80k, and still be eligible and full coverage to 23. is that right?
kids deserve full coverage if their parents cannot afford medical insurance. not to 23 years of age and not if your parents make 80k.
and as far as illegal aliens - an aspirin and a boot in the ass.
I'm not the biggest fan of SCHIP, but in the face of overwhelming public support for it as well as wide-spread legislative support and for simple human decency and political common sense reasons, Bush was a fool to veto it because, as Jon Stewart put it, "Poor kids!"
Standing by ones principles to thwart the advancement of socialized medicine is one thing. Yanking away the medical care for a segment of children who fall through the cracks because some children at a proverbial high end (and, by high end, we're really talking about "slightly less poor", not suburban families in five bedroom houses eating steak and lobster seven days a week and opting to use the government to pay for their health care) might use the program as well is just bad government.
What's even more bizarre is that in light of what is going to be a hugely unpopular move, the leading Republican contenders all basically agree with his decision. I'm not sure how they feel they can win with, at best, 31% of the vote and falling, but it should be interesting to watch.
Nothing in our world is an absolute. There are un(?)intended consequences for all things. I wonder if there is any truth to the following:
"The German welfare state
As a result, beginning in the 1880s, Imperial Germany implemented the main governmental programs that we today call the welfare state: unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, health insurance, workers’ compensation, workplace health and safety regulations, and many others.
"In the 1890s, Bismarck explained his rationale to American historian and Bismarckian sympathizer William H. Dawson: “My idea was to bribe the working classes, or shall I say, to win them over, to regard the state as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in their welfare. It is not moral to make profits out of human misfortunes and suffering,” Bismarck said. “Life-insurance, accident insurance, sickness insurance should not be the subjects of private speculation. They should be carried out by the state or at least insurance should be on the mutual principle and no dividends or profits should be derived by private persons"
German health insurance
State-mandated health insurance began in Germany in 1884, and initially covered workers in factories, mines, foundries, banks, dockyards, railroads and inland shipping. The blanket of coverage was extended over increasing portions of the work force in 1885 and 1892, with family members of workers included after 1892. In 1911, workers in agricultural and forestry occupations were added, and by 1928, practically every trade, occupation and craft in Germany was enveloped in the system.
Before the First World War, anyone making less than 2,000 marks in the covered occupations was required by law to participate in the insurance scheme. By 1928, all those earning less than 3,600 marks were forced to participate. The insurance funds mandated by the German state were organized on the basis of trades and occupations. But the state continually consolidated them, with the result that, while in 1909 there were 23,000 of such funds, by 1914 they had been reduced to 10,000, and to about 7,400 in 1929.
The benefits paid out by the state-mandated health insurance system continuously exceeded contributions received from member employees and employers and required government subsidization. Total contributions received by the health-insurance funds from employers and employees in 1929 was 375 percent larger than they had been in 1913. But health-insurance benefits paid out by the funds in 1929 were 406 percent larger than what was paid out in 1913. Costs of administering the mandatory insurance funds had increased 288 percent between 1913 and 1929. And the government subsidy to the system had increased by 270 percent between 1924 and 1929.
",,,,, Begun by Bismarck as a tool of state policy to fight radical socialism through the implementation of Imperial State Socialism, it ended up as one of the cogs in the wheel of Hitler’s National Socialism."
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