December 12, 2007
Bush to Veto SCHIP Again Today
To: 177,000 uninsured kids in NC from low-income families.
From: President Bush and NC’s entire Republican Congressional delegation.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Word from DC today is the President again will veto the second version of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007.
Without quick action and at least some increase in the money NC gets for its SCHIP program, NC officials predict closing NC’s child health program to new kids who want to enroll by early fall. However, it's likely after today’s veto Congress will pass an extension giving NC enough money to keep things running. Of course, this won’t start reaching the estimated 177,000 kids eligible for NC’s SCHIP and Medicaid programs but not signed up.
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29 Comments Add yours »
Let’s not forget that Republicans won’t vote to override his veto, so this is their failure, too. House and Senate Republicans need to stand up for health care for our kids.
This is a great day for North Carolina taxpayers who will not have to pay for millions of middle class american adults to have health care under this program.
Democrats keep passing this pile of garbage of a bill knowing that Bush will veto it. If Democrats really cared about funding SCHIP, they would get a version of the bill to the President that he could sign. It is obvious they care more about playing politics than funding SCHIP.
Not one adult in NC gets SCHIP coverage while 177,000 kids in families making less than about $41,000 for a family of four lack coverage.
Nah, of course it wouldn’t make sense to raise cigarette taxes to help pay for coverage for our lowest income kids.
Adam, isn’t the point of increasing the cigarette tax to discourge smoking? Doesn’t the left want to ban smoking in all public places? How can you pay for healthcare with cigarette taxes if your stated goal is to prevent people from smoking?
The only logical reason for wanting to do this is so you can control peoples behavior and then, after there is a shortfall of revenue, you raise taxes on everyone in the state to pay for your new entitlement scam.
No, if you want to help people have a choice of affordable health insurance plans for their children, you’ve got to find a way to pay for it. Cigarette taxes are an attractive option, although I’m open to your suggestions for alternate revenue sources.
Why don’t we have an optional tax. If you believe everyone should have affordable health insurance plans for the children, you check yes at the end of the year and everyone who does so gets to pay their share and begin the new year with a warm fuzzy feeling.
I love this idea Pirate. Just be sure you also give me the option of paying for this little adventure.
Sorry, anglico, but health insurance is a private industry whereas national defense is a public good. Apples and oranges, my friend.
It’s not in the public’s good to have a healthy future not mired in medical debt?
Whoa there partner. Your magic lines about public good and private industry are mighty darn arbitrary.
We’ve shown we can outsource our army and fuel the growth of defense contractors with taxpayer dollars . . . why not go ahead and declare war the private industry it already is? Besides, what’s going on in Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with national defense in any practical sense of the word.
It’s clear we disagree – fair enough – so it’s only appropriate for us to have the option of paying taxes or not based on our own values and views.
“It’s not in the public’s good to have a healthy future not mired in medical debt? ” – Are you suggesting that Medicaid and Medicare do not constitute future medical debt? How is forcing everyone in the country onto government mandated healthcare programs going to eliminate future medical debt?
National defense is pretty much considered to be a use of state power by both liberal and conservative thinkers alike. Suggesting that war is a private industry is ridiculous. Sure, there are companies that profit from war but it is the US Military that engages in and conducts war.
“what’s going on in Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with national defense in any practical sense of the word.” – America’s enemies are engaging us in their lands, not on ours. Can you think of a better way to defend our nation? I suppose you would rather just negotiate with them? They only have two options that are acceptable to them – convert or die. I’m an atheist who enjoys living so negotiating with them really isn’t much of an option for me…
Pirate…please list below the names of the Iraqi’s involved in the 9/11 attacks. I get all those foreign sounding Muslim names confused.
God Bless America.
Why did 9/11 happen sturner?
It happened because of two reasons according to Osama Bin Laden. In his 1998 declaration of war on the US he stated that Al Qaeda is at war with the US because 1) US Military presence in the Middle East and 2) the No-Fly-Zones over Iraq.
Why were there US military in the Middle East and No-Fly-Zones over Iraq?
Because in 1991 the nation of Iraq invaded Kuwait and the US led an international coalition to expel the tyrant of Baghdad from an ally’s territory.
9/11 happened because of the actions of the Iraqi government that was led by the now deceased Saddam Hussein.
The 1998 ftawa was more expansive than you would have us believe. Hostility towards the US preceded Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iraq and Bin Laden cared little for the secular Iraqi government even though he shared its contempt for Shiites. Bin Laden’s crocodile tears for Iraqis are poor justification. By that logic we should have been in Sudan years ago. Stick with WMD. It’s more plausible.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan the world’s primary source of heroin (and a great source of terrorism funding) continues unabated and Bin Laden yodels in Pasthun.
You keep talking about “forcing everyone in the country onto government mandated healthcare programs”. That’s not true. You can still have your private insurance. Most people here are talking about the government making insurance coverage available to everyone. It will probably be private insurance. Government has a legitimate role in seeing that coverage is available to everyone.
Typo: fatwa
Al Qaeda disbanded after the war in Afghanistan with the Soviet Union. It was after the Gulf War in 1991 that Bin Laden reconstituted Al Qaeda. Yes, Islamists hated the US before 1991. We all know that. But it wasn’t until after 1991 that they started to attack the US… beginning in 1993 with the 1st WTC bombing. Al Qaeda reformed because of US military presence in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations. This presence existed for one purpose… to contain the Baathist regime.
So Hillary, Edwards and the other’s plans for healthcare “reform” will not require people to have health coverage? That sounds like “government mandated healthcare programs†to me.
I strongly disagree with your statementthat “Government has a legitimate role in seeing that coverage is available to everyone.” If you are making the claim that the government should make sure that insurers do not discriminate based on age, gender, race, etc., then okay, that is legitimate. If you are suggesting that the government has the legitimate power to force me to spend my income on a private good or service that I do not need in order to make that good or service less expensive to you, then that is patently absurd.
You can hang on to your private insurance liferaft. Life comes at you fast. For everything else there’s Medicaid. Some restrictions apply, not valid in all states, only valid for new applications and not health problems in progress, families with incomes between 200% and 250% of poverty level not eligible.
Government has a legitimate role in seeing that coverage is available to everyone. Like water in the faucet. You don’t have to drink it. You can buy your own bottle if you want.
The government doesn’t mandate that I buy water from private companies so that your water will be less expensive…
Greg – on what basis does government derive this power? It certainly does not come from the Constitution or from Western Liberal philosophy. I am not aware of any religion that would suggest the government has the right to force subjects to buy health insurance.
You’re fighting your own shadow.
I’m just trying to understand what you base your beliefs on… By what logic does government derive the power to force subjects to buy a private good or service that they may or may not utilize?
If you want to understand what I base my beliefs on then ask me about that.
You are asking me to explain something I have not specifically advocated. You seem to be itching for a fight with someone over your own fears.
Instead of asking me to explain your own specific fears why don’t you state them with respect to some specific plan that is generating them?
Government requires that water be available in all occupied buildings. Government doesn’t have to provide the water though it often does. You’re not forced to buy it or even use it.
The following text comes from NC General Statutes Chapter 130A, Public Health:
We are discussing your statement that “Government has a legitimate role in seeing that coverage is available to everyone.†The major candidates of your party are advocating mandatory health coverage for everyone on the basis that if more people have insurance premiums will go down.
Should the government also be able to mandate that everyone buy a hybrid or non-fossil fuel burning car? This would put more of the cars into the market and would eventually cause the price of these vehicles to decrease. How is this any different from your argument for universal health insurance? They would both be in the collective interest, would they not? When we are discussing the collective good, the needs or rights of the individual are meaningless, right?
Health care is not a commodity. Attending to individuals with limited access to health care does not diminish the rights of others.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has some good information on Health Coverage & the Uninsured if you wish to explore it further. You can even compare candidates health care proposals.
The candidates are not addressing “Attending to individuals with limited access to health care”, they are advocating that everyone in the country should be forced by law to purchace insurance in order to lower the price of healthcare premiums. We already have government programs that attend “to individuals with limited access to health care” like Medicaid and Medicare.
The purpose of advocating mandatory coverage is to make healthcare more “affordable”. This is a blatant vote grabbing scheme aimed at middle class voters. It’s not about helping the poor. It certainly won’t help me if I am forced to buy something I don’t need or want. If anything, it will only force me to delay my education and force me to look for another job so that I can continue to pay my other bills. I’d much rather finish school and then get a job that provides health coverage as a part of my compensation for employment.
The people who benefit the most from this scheme are the middle class and the poor are going to be stuck with paying the bills.
Employer based health insurance is a product of government tax breaks. Rising treatment and drug costs are causing employers to drop health insurance benefits and insurers to drop coverage. It may not be there when you get that job or think you need it.
An increasing number of working people are not making enough to pay for health insurance (but making too much to qualify for Medicaid. (Medicare is for 65 and over and some disabled people). Poor people don’t necessarily qualify for Medicaid either and others may qualify only after they have incurred excessive medical expenses ie are sick and then become poor because of it.
Employer based health insurance can be good until you switch employers or the plan morphs. Your medical and pharmacy claim history becomes a basis for exclusion. Private insurers spend a lot of money making sure they don’t pay your bills. With a universal default system all the costs associated with the marketing and mark-down machinery are eliminated. Medicare is a good model with less overhead than private industry.
Medicare is a good model? Try telling that to the people who are refused dental care because the government keeps cutting reimbursal rates in order to reign in exploding costs. Sorry, but I really don’t want to have my medical care decisions made by 3 or 4 State Senators in a tiny room on the sixth floor of the LOB.
The only thing a “universal default system” will do is raise taxes on everyone while you will still have huge out-of-pocket expenses or have to have private insurance if you want quality healthcare. The government will do EVERYTHING it can to minimize the cost to taxpayers in order to avoid backlash at the polls. In doing so, they will limit reimbursement rates, limit services, and limit medicinal options to keep costs at a minimum. You are crazy if you think we can have a “universal system” that will cover everyone with every possible form of illness and medical need. The costs would be too prohibitive and politicians in a democracy will not be foolish enough to even try that.
And it’s easy to say that Medicaid has less overhead than private insurers when the private insurers have to protect themselves from fraud but Medicaid can outsource this cost to the AG’s office.
http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48739400_medicaid-fraud-busts-net-more-20-million-07-says-north-carolina-ag-cooper
I love how everyone is always about penalizing the smokers and always using them as a fall back….you non smokers would more than find it a problem if we taxed your alcohol or your fast food…just because we smoke doesn’t mean we deserve to be singled out and taxed…