Bush continues to work towards complete destruction of the GOP

no one is saying that poor children shouldn't get health care, but a family making $80 grand isn't poor - hate to break it to you. But HH income of $80K in the U.S. isn't that bad.

Now, the bill was vetoed to prevent MIDDLE CLASS families from moving from private insurance to gov't insurance.

Do you get that? Once the dems fix that it will pass.

 

I think one thing that keeps them sleep well at night is the rhetoric of conservative leaders. They often embellish their dirty laundry with nice words. For example, fighting for oil is called fighting for freedom, cutting welfare is good because capitalism is good and commies are evil.

 

How big is the family. 2 adults, and 3 children on 80K would certainly have trouble paying for healthcare, and some govt. assistance would be great for them.

Furthermore it provides healthier children who will do better in school, become more productive workers etc. It is better for everyone.

 

Except that something like 75% of the public supports the bill as-is, as does 67% of the Senate, and something like 60% of the House. And the bill doesn't allow $80k families to join except in very limited parts of the country where cost of living is much higher than other parts of the country.

And evidence from the past suggests that families don't move from private to government insurance, and it's not even government insurance - the program is based on purchase of private insurance. It's like a whole massive post of incorrectness.

 

I don't know where you live, but in Los Angeles or New York that could be difficult. There might be an affordable plan offering very minimal coverage, providing nobody had any pre-existing conditions.

 

dems are behind it for sure, as are repubs facing tough re-elections.

But the concern here is not about getting those children without health insurance coverage, but rather simply moving people from private insurance to govt insurance. That's not going to help children get coverage and it's flawed.

The point is you are moving people from one insurance to another program that's backed by the gov't. So now what you are doing is simply having the gov't compete with private insurers. Our gov't shouldn't be in this game.

We need a way to help those kids who DON'T have insurance get it, and make sure people just don't take advantage of this program to save a few bucks.

I agree, first help those in need - poorer kids first. If you make $80K in new york, your life isn't easy, but you aren't poor either. Let's help the poorest have hope and chance....I don't think this bill does that.

 

note: it's not destruction if the alternative plans/ideas are not good

 

You really don't know what you're talking about. Bush while Governor of Texas tried to prevent poor families from getting this same health care coverage back in the 90's when it first originated. Bush is a slime ball, he always has been.




Such a kidder!
http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/07/07/lie_week/

George W. "We'll love the babies" Bush says he's a champion of children in Texas. Roughly 200,000 of them might disagree.


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By Joshua Micah Marshall

July 07, 2000 | All I can say is I've tried. Since Lie of the Week first launched, we've had one column targeting Al Gore and four skewering George W. Bush. It wasn't supposed to be this way. The brief from the editors was to be a switch-hitter, to nail each side. The problem was supposed be balancing out the misstatements of Gore. Isn't Gore supposed to be the fibber?

The only problem is that George W. just doesn't seem to want to cooperate. This week's Lie is a perfect example.

The latest Bush-Gore dust-up is over their competing policies for providing health insurance for children in low-income families. In particular, they're arguing over a program called CHIPs, the State Child Health Insurance Program, a program that was passed with bipartisan support in 1997 and that aimed to provide coverage for children whose parents couldn't afford private insurance but made too much money to qualify for Medicaid.

In Bush's press release it says: "When the CHIPs program was first implemented, Governor Bush embraced it as an opportunity to help deliver health coverage to thousands of uninsured children, and signed legislation providing health insurance for more than 423,000 children."

Well, not exactly. Bush, who while campaigning loves to promise crowds that "we'll love the babies," did eventually "sign" a bill that provided health insurance to roughly that number of kids. That�s not the whole story.

First, a few details: The CHIPs program involves a mixture of federal and state money. The federal government will pay for health coverage for children whose parents make up to double what is considered the poverty line as long as the state agrees to foot a portion of the bill (in Texas' case, 26 percent of the tab). A number of Republican governors have eagerly embraced the program, most notably John Engler in Michigan, John Rowland in Connecticut, Christie Todd Whitman in New Jersey and George Pataki in New York.

But in healthcare policy circles, Bush has actually been rather notorious for trying to make sure the program covers as few kids as possible. Though the program allowed states to insure kids at up to double the poverty line -- or 200 percent -- Bush first tried to limit coverage to kids whose parents made up to 133 percent of the poverty line, later agreeing to bump it up to 150 percent. Bush fought tooth and nail with the state legislature to keep coverage to 150 percent, rather than the more generous 200 percent. In human terms, this meant denying coverage to roughly 200,000 Texas children. The legislature eventually won, and Bush signed the bill. But Bush fought it every step of the way.

So, signed it? Yes. But "embraced" it? Well, that sounds like a bit of a stretch. Doesn't it?

To clarify matters I talked to Dan Bartlett, Bush's press spokesman who covers healthcare policy matters. According to Bartlett, the charge that Bush tried to lowball the CHIPs program and keep coverage at 150 percent is just a misleading "snapshot" of the legislative process. Bush followed the lead of the legislature's Interim Committee on Children's Health Insurance, which recommended starting with coverage at 150 percent, and then later eagerly signed the bill when the full legislature decided to go with 200 percent. The key point in Bartlett's version of events is that Bush was basically just following the lead of the interim committee.

That's not how Texas state Rep. Glen Maxey sees it. Maxey, a Democrat, has worked closely on the CHIPs issue in Texas and was on that interim committee. Maxey calls Bartlett's version of events a "blatant outright lie, a Texas tall tale." The committee never recommended the 150 percent coverage level. Not only did Bush push hard for the lower coverage number, he also slow-rolled the process so that the program wouldn't get up and running until roughly a year after it could have gone into effect.

"Out of the roughly 500,000 who the program should cover, only 28,000 [have been enrolled]. Other states have been up and running for a long time. We're turning back money to the federal government," he says. (Maxey also notes that one of the reasons Bush resisted the program so mightily was that the enrollment process could lead to something called "Medicaid spillover." That means that in the process of signing up for CHIPs, some parents might discover they were actually eligible for Medicaid. The last thing candidate Bush wants is rising Medicaid rolls in Texas while he's running for president.)

The bottom line seems to be that Bush worked pretty hard to cover as few kids as possible under the CHIPs program. To say that he "embraced [the program] as an opportunity to help deliver health coverage to thousands of uninsured children" isn't just a stretch. It�s a lie.

 

people love to assume that those who will actually receive benefits of said plan are not those that truly "need" it the most. A lot tend to assume it's the most poor and struggling, and if that can be insured i am all for it, but that's not what was presented.

I don't know what your talking about new yorker. mark has always been very fair, objective and analytical in his conversations...not to mention very engauging when trying to truly understand the points of others. Those great qualities are also why is he is on my ignore list

 

ha - i almost took you literally until i got to the end. geez man, mc mark is so off the mark that he gives liberals a bad name. he also resorts to cheap shots because he's got nothing left.

what people haven't mentioned is that bush proposed his own increase of $5billion a year that was rejected by dems.

seems to me the dems are trying to have a stand off and really are just trying to find a way to get some gov't health insurance in under the false guise of helping children. i love it how everyone focuses on these kids being poor when in actuallity a family of four making 80K would be eligible. I find it hard to believe that all the kids living in poverty are already covered.

 

George Bush has been destroying the GOP by spending on anything and everything. This is the opposite. It is too little, too late, but at least fiscal conservatives will like it.

 

No child should be denied love and care.

Suffering children breaks God's heart.

If only we loved one another, the government wouldn't even be an issue.

Neighbors, love, compassion

We probably spend enough on Starbucks to fund child health care for the poor.

These things should be funded ahead of most of the federal budget.

Instead of a veto, why don't the politicians all get together and come up with a plan that would really help disadvantaged children, that would show compassion and real love; and then I am sure they could cut enough fat out of the pork to cover the expense.

Man I hate to see children hurting.

 

Spending on something worthwhile that is good isn't being irresponsible. Cutting spending just to cut spending doesn't make sense. Cutting spending to eliminate waste, and programs that don't work does make sense.

 

Don't nickel and dime it. 5 billion a year wouldn't be able to make the changes that are needed, and increase the coverage that this would.

Bush's plan would actually be a bigger waste than something more comprehensive like the bill Bush vetoed.

A family of 4 making only 80K should be eligible.

 

link please?

The poorest already have programs for their health insurance. If you make 80K in New York you aren't poor. If your family of 4 has a combined total income of 80K you are in financial need on expensive things such as health care.

 

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/1004thurlets042.html

The CBO estimates one person now covered by private insurance will move to the gov't program from private insurance for each new legitimate SCHIP enrollee. Thta's from the CBO - so this basically shows that the gov't is competiting with private insurance companies now and we'd be moving people from private insurance to gov't program, half of all enrollees infact!

And to claim that all low income children now have insurance is just ridiculous. Where's your link to back that up?

This program is really about Dems extending SCHIP to higher income families based on your idea that $82K isn't enough for a family of four.

To give you a sense at what you are support, the median household income in the n.y. for a family of four is $72K

What you are supporting is saying that well over half of New York Families should qualify for this program. And of those covered 13% are ADULTS not children.

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. SCHIP was suppose to be about helping low-income children, not a back door to gov't run health care.

Anyone who is a fiscal conservative and actually for doing something for poor children should be aghast at what the dems are doing here.