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If Stomping on Children’s Health Care Is OK, Why Do Bushies Bury News on Weekend? |
Late last Friday, as the nation’s news cycle wound down and most of us turned our attention to the weekend, the Bush administration ramped up its attack on children’s health care. Today, as reports of President Bush’s latest action surface, children’s health care advocates are furious.
In letters to state officials who administer the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Dennis G. Smith, Bush’s director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, announced new rules designed to prevent states from expanding SCHIP to cover more of the nation’s more than 8 million uninsured children. This latest action follows Bush’s threats to veto bills renewing SCHIP, which expires Sept. 30.
Ann Clemency Kohler, New Jersey’s deputy commissioner of Human Services, tells today’s New York Times,
We are horrified at the new federal policy. It will cause havoc with our program and could jeopardize coverage for thousands of children.
Several states, including California, New York and New Jersey, have approved plans to cover more uninsured children from low- and moderate-income families. As Progressive States pointed out earlier this year:
Even families not in poverty are increasingly unable to afford private coverage, which is why so many states are looking to expand SCHIP and other federal/state programs to ensure access to health care.
Just before Congress left for its August recess, both the U.S. House and Senate approved SCHIP reauthorization bills that could bring health care coverage to as many as 4.2 million more kids, in addition to the 6.6 million already covered. The Congressional Budget Office says Bush’s SCHIP reauthorization proposal would actually drop children from the health coverage rolls.
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee that crafted the Senate version of the SCHIP bill, criticized the under-the-news radar of late the Friday announcement (news reports say the letters went out at 7:30 p.m.). Says Baucus:
Drastic change jeopardizes coverage for tens of thousands of children in low-income working families. New policies like this warrant greater transparency before changes are made. I hope the administration will reconsider.
The bills drew bipartisan support, but Bush says he will veto the legislation and he and his staunch Capitol Hill allies claim covering more children would hurt the private insurance industry.
Scarecrow on Firedoglake writes:
the administration wants to deny SCHIP health coverage to possibly millions of low-to-medium income children solely to shield the private insurance companies from competition and to protect their profits.
New York Daily News columnist Bill Hammond calls Bush’s private insurance claims “quackery.” He points out that New York, like other states:
…buys its coverage from private health plans which deliver care mostly through private hospitals and doctors. Socialized medicine, this is not.
Bush’s cluelessness on the issue was on vivid display at a speech in Cleveland when he tried to defend his veto threat.
“People have access to health care in America,” he said. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
On this issue, it’s our president who needs a checkup - from the neck up.
Many Republican lawmakers are spending the August recess peddling the Bush line in an effort to placate home state voters who want to know why their lawmakers voted against health care for kids. Click here and here to take a look at how Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) are reshaping the truth.
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The REAL reason for Bush changing these rules is that the Insurance industry is terrified at the prospect of losing even one dollar of profit.
If this program is allowed to succeed it’s a baby (literally) step in the direction of single payer/universal health care.
All the other excuses/rationales they give are self serving deceptive bull feces.
These thieving lying con artists must be exposed and held accountable. Every member of Congress (of any political party) who doesn’t vote to force this program down Bush’s throat needs to be un-elected in 2008!!!
You can’t blame this burial all on Bush — the media is just as if not more compliant in the matter.
It’s not that it’s a slow news day, it’s that on Saturday morning there’s nothing on the front page of any newspaper about it, and that the local TV news doesn’t pick it up on Saturday evening.
It seems nobody in the media thinks SCHIP is “newsworthy.”
Sicko is a great film but it simply highlights what most smart Americans already know, we have a little insurance card in our wallets that is virtually worthless. Each year employers purchase cheaper and cheaper HMO plans which shift more and more costs to the employee ie co-pays and fewer drugs, fewer participating doctors. These junk plans make it harder to get an appointment too, when you call a doctor the first thing they ask when you try to get an appointment is what insurance you have (never tell them, it’s none of their business until after they give you an appointment). My employer actualy cuts his insurance cost each year because they offer such worthless plans now. It is time for a Canadian style universal healthcare system, why do we continue to let the health insurance middlemen and the AMA and a few corrupt politicians lie to us and steal our money, American workers need to have a healthcare revolution and rise up and DEMAND UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE ! These thieves need to find another line of work, just like they tell the steelworkers, the loggers, the factory workers and all of the industries they have killed off, it’s time we killed off their gravy train !
Universal Health Care
A poem by David G. Hurlburt 2004
Health care is our basic human right.
Now is the time to stand up and fight.
Put our money and our vote up on the line.
Get up on our feet and walk a picket line.
Dial a phone or write a letter,
Do it so every one will feel better.
Why should only the rich have medical care?
And the poor kids die but Bush doesn’t care?
Get out of your chair and in to the street.
It is time for us all to vote with our feet.
Show and tell politicians, turn up the heat.
If we all fight together we can not be beat.
The Iraqis get universal health care,
The rules of war require that its there.
Prisoners in Git-mo get medical care.
But not all Americans that’s just not fair?
What about the hard working poor?
They need medical care for sure?
The system is broken it profits the greedy.
Let us fix the system to serve the needy.
Bush and Chenny are the real Sicko’s,
Impeachment is needed don’t you know.
Denial of health care to all is a high crime,
Remove them from office it is way past time!
The bush administration is not only anti-union but anti people. Until our democratic friends in the House and Senate get some Brass, we will continue to see no progress on any Bill put before the do nothing congress. Impeachment process needs to be done if if it take us past Bush leaving office. Since when does the Executive Branch over rule the Congress of the United States. Please democrats get some brass and take the establishment on.
There is no doubt our children are our future and if we can spend billions on a war for people who do absolutely nothing for our kids why should we continue to spend american tax dollars on a war instead of our own people. We continue to support every two bit dictator in the world while our people young and old take a back seat to countries who could care less about our own. Get out of Iraq, pass healthcare legislation, better our labor laws and give americans the same breaks we donate to every other country in the world.
Earl A. Frampton, CWA/AFL/CIO Retired
Bush wants to funnel any Health Care money to foreign nations by ignoring American children,. The State Department sent billions to Palestine, as well as 3 million to Hamas, all terrorist groups.
SCHIP Health coverage will not jeopardize the insurance industry, nor will it take away their profits. This is a blatant lie. The Bush administration and Bush himself are all liars. They have no regard for the American people, especially children. They could not care less for what happens to the poor working class of America, even the middle class is having a hard time surviving with the rising costs of everything.
Everyone on line is doing a lot of talking, but Congress, the media, and the politicians are not listening. Bush, and all the incompetent, lying, self-serving scum in the white house should have already been impeached, but no one is listening. No one is doing anything to stop the damage, the constitutional violations, the ignorance toward our laws and the American people, the blatant disregard for human life - the list goes on and on.
We live in such sick times. You and I know what is necessary to repair the damage caused by this administration, but we don’t count. It’s all about politics, and this is a bloody shame. The people who have the power to make a difference are not listening. This country cannot afford to wait until new leadership in 2008; WE NEED SOLUTIONS NOW!!!!