An overwelming majority of people in the US seem to favor expansion of the S-CHIP program.
Eight in 10 Americans favor expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP, including large majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.
More interesting, to me at least, is that people are willing to make a sacrifice to see that S-CHIP is expanded
While the president has raised concerns about the additional cost of expanding S-CHIP, those who favor the proposal say they’d even be willing to pay more in taxes to help the program cover more children.
This makes the supporters of the S-CHIP program very different than supporters of things like the war in Iraq, in that they are willing to put their money where their mouth is. At least I have never heard a single supporter of the war suggest that taxes should be raised to pay for the it. The goal of universal health care is an issue that seems to unite and inspire almost everyone in the country. It is interesting that the only person standing in the way of expanding the S-CHIP program is the cynical leader of the minority party.
The article is here
I’m not a Will fan (I linked to this via Russell Roberts), but what is the right response to his point?
Consider the controversy over the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is up for renewal. Most Republicans favor extending it. Almost all Democrats, and some Republicans, favor expanding it in a way that transforms it.
SCHIP is described as serving “poor children” or children of “the working poor.” Everyone agrees that it is for “low-income” people. Under the bill that Democrats hope to pass over the president’s veto tomorrow, states could extend eligibility to households earning $61,950. But America’s median household income is $48,201. How can people above the median income be eligible for a program serving lower-income people?
Politics often operates on the Humpty Dumpty Rule (in “Through the Looking Glass,” he says, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less”). But the people currently preening about their compassion should have some for the English language.
Many politicians pander, as Edwards does with gusto, to Americans’ current penchant for self-pity. Hence the incessant talk about “the forgotten middle class.” Because such talk is incessant, it of course refutes itself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/16/AR2007101601537.html
Because $61,950 a year in New Jersey is a hell of a lot different than $61,950 a year in Nebraska. You (caveat) and the Republicans know full well that this sort of a talking point is low-brow, intended for consumption by people who have either no critical thinking skills or no interest in actually understanding the issue above simply wanting to root for their favorite political team.
Cherrypicking statistics in a program like this is like cherrypicking verses out of the bible to make an argument. Job mentions a behemouth, therefore dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark…same thing, different venue, much higher stakes.
The only honest argument I’ve heard from Republicans on this issue is that they don’t want government funded health care. The politicians who detest socialized medicine and have the balls to just come right out and say it, I have respect for.
This hair-splitting that takes over anytime the right wing is poised to shaft the plebs is cowardly. They treat it like a dime store murder mystery novel almost, and of course play up the idea that someone is getting over on their tax bill.
Graham Frost’s parents didn’t sell the house and move into a cardboard box to pay for his treatment out of pocket…they didn’t go hungry to pay for insurance…they didn’t hound their relatives (in right-wing land, there’s ALWAYS a rich uncle, grandparent, etc.) to sell their homes to pay for it.
Yea…caveat, this is one of those things where the consequences of being stindgy are well understood by most Americans. Children will die because of it. That’s a sad thing.
Unless we human beings really are just ground beef.
Al:
The median household income in the world is about $7,000. That’s still 8 times inequality when compared with our nation’s median income. Why are you stopping at our nation’s borders. I doubt your morality stops there.
I’ve said before that I am for vouchers in education and healthcare. Under this system, every kid could and their family could choose what insurance and education best met their needs.
SCHIP is a good piece of legislation at the core, wrapped in corruption. It’s not as good as vouchers, but better than nothing. Can’t we cut out the bad stuff, and fight for the kids together?
Here’s some more insight:
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=e8682b7a-bdda-4f57-a17d-eedfe24ea253
Tom Coburn is someone I’ve heard enough of on this topic for two lifetimes. On the Senate floor for his speech I sat through, he wasn’t talking at all about corruption. His whole trip was on how this would bankrupt future generations. How he’d treat people without insurance for free when he had his practice up and running.
caveat – the median world income is completely irrelevant. How does the living in wage in China have anything to do with a living wage in parts of the US?
Are you arguing that $7,000 a year is enough to live on in America? Obviously not. The fact is, Republicans are the ones pushing these arguments. I provide an argument against it, saying that even a national level is an incorrect measure, as the cost of living in Nebraska is much lower than New Jersey.
That is a valid point. Is it not?
Al: I agree that kids should get access to medical care. I just disagree that it should be just American kids.
Would you vote against the SCHIP program until it included children in Indonesia and Niger?
Al, I would vote for SCHIP at the core, not wrapped up in earmarks or extended to adults.
Would you vote for $3,000 healthcare vouchers and $12,000 education vouchers for American kids?
I wouldn’t vote for a fixed amount of health care vouchers. Once that money is used up and my kid needs an operation to live, it still ends up as a choice between letting them die or going bankrupt to keep them alive.
I’m not totally sold on any single aspect of the policy debates that are ongoing in regards to education. It is such a base necessity for our future prosperity, that I’m really not comfortable with the idea of schools that had been public, turned into profit engines that exist within the portfolio of say, General Electric or Dow Chemicals.
If the public is unsatisfied with the product they’re getting for the money they’re spending in vouchers, that piece of business (the schools a corporation owns) can be sold off to private equity firms just like anything else, plundered for treasure and either left to die or spun off down the line.
We have already seen what can happen when a vital public service can become once the administration of it is carried out by Wall Street…health insurance is a racket. If we shrug our shoulders and do the same with education, we’ll be even worse off.
The marketplace isn’t in the business of caring about individuals. In both health care and education, that aspect is vital.
I must also add what recent history has shown us in regards to plunder and the school system…No Child Left Behind has been way of shifting tax dollars from the schools themselves, over to the testing industry.
That type of fundamentally mandated expenditure is something I’m against. The government telling every school system in the country that they know what’s best…it’s like subsidizing ethanol production. There are winners and losers, with downstream destruction and a net loss in terms of the big picture.
Republicans are really pumping the idea that socialized medicine would somehow render doctors obsolete…a dishonest argument meant to instill fear. What they want to protect aren’t patients or students, but rather the market-rigged overcharges on drugs, equipment, MCAS tutorials, etc.
If the government was to purchase these things in bulk, and negotiate prices down, the game would then REALLY have to be about capitalism and not this phony capitalism where winners and losers are chosen based on how much cash they supplied to whom.
The doctors will do their thing, and at a lower cost, since they won’t have to include in their overhead costs a clerk whose primary job is to haggle with insurance companies over refused payments…ANOTHER niche in the market that wouldn’t exist otherwise…as we have thousands of people working from home already, their employer having become a place for these doctors to outsource that work to, they’re sitting there all day haggling with insurance companies.
This is the result of privatizing health care administration. The billions we flush down the toilet each year on such triffling nonsense is exactally what would happen if our schools were privatized. It would create fraud, waste and abuse from day one, and the owners of these schools would be buying influence with cash, ensuring that even if kids weren’t being taught how to read anymore, there would be plenty of Republicans out there to make sure that type of an issue gets covered up with lines like:
“Take these schools out of the marketplace, and the relationship between your child and their teacher will cease to exist.”
Al, the $3,000 IS FOR INSURANCE. C’mon–insurance for kids runs around $2,000. Gotta pool risk! This ain’t the Stone Age no more.
Go Sox!
So for $3,000 a year, if my kid needs a kidney, I’m not losing my house?
Something like that would be an acceptable alternative, politically speaking. Besides a Democratic landslide in 2008, changing health care in an enormous way will be tricky anyway. If Republicans can get on board, it will be an end result like that which does it.
I’d just fear that a Greenspan-esque figure would in 20 years scare the hell out of everyone, insist that the amount be raised substantially (as he did with the social security tax in the early 80s), while cutting taxes for businesses and the rich once again.
My main point though, is that SECURITY is the key and it is what the American people want. To be able to do everything right, get a college degree, get a job, get married, buy a house, have kids, and not be ruined because of health insurance or a lack thereof.
That is a basic need that all human beings share. Above all, we need to feel safe.
Al, I believe in security, but the government is not the silver bullet for every problem we face. We need strong institutions other than the government–see Ricardo’s Theory of Comparative Advantage.
I do not think that education, healthcare, employment, marriage, home equity and fertility are Rights. I think they are Opportunities under Freedoms. People who wish to opt out of any of these things–and I suspect that you believe in an individual’s right to privacy–should be free to opt out (and morally, not pay for others who opt in).
But if a child and their family opt into health insurance and opt into education, these are opportunties with positive externalities for all of society. Who else is going to pay-as-we-go into our Social Security years?
And yes, to your first point, $3,000 is more than enough to buy health insurance which covers organ transplants.
Hey we were just talking about this (I’m the first commenter):
http://blogs.ft.com/undercover/2007/10/is-divorce-a-di.html
Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. While Democrats have demagogued the SCHIP bill, the leaders of the Democratic Congress have let the health care of active duty soldiers and their families go unfunded.
Blackburn gave them the what for:
More than four months ago, this House passed an appropriations bill designed to provide benefits to our soldiers and veterans.
HR 2642 passed the House by an overwhelming 409 to 2 vote. A similar bill passed the Senate 92 to 1. But since then nothing has happened.
It has been 131 days since we passed this legislation and still nothing has been sent to the President’s desk for him to sign.
The Senate appointed conferees to hammer out a compromise between the two bills six weeks ago, but the liberal House leadership refuses to do so.
The question is why?
Why would the new Majority play political politics with the health care of our brave men and women in uniform?
There is no reason, a month into the fiscal year, this bill should be unresolved. I ask all my colleagues — the 408 of them who voted for the bill — to demand the House appoint conferees. Stop doing nothing.
Do what needs to be done.
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2007/10/24/no-schip-for-army-kids/#more-2091
Oh, so the “freedom” to opt-out is what’s at stake? My freedom to say, “my family will go without school and doctors thank you very much.”
I’m not approaching this from an ideological place. Sick kids dying because they don’t have health insurance, that’s the issue.
$900 a month is what my parents would have to pay for health insurance now that my dad is retired. Worked 40+ years and has to choose between paying $10,000 each year or going without.
The $3,000 is a theoretical number, not relevant in peoples’ lives today.
Let’s see how the insurance companies act towards everyone whose house burned down in California. If Katrina was any indication, they’ll reneg on their end of the agreement and drag out as much of it in the courts as they can.
caveat – are you satisfied with how the insurance industry operates in the free market?
Al, of course I am not satisfied with the insurance industry–what industry gives you more than you think your dollar is worth? How can you have the radical faith to guarantee me that the government can do better, that is the question.
You are comparing health premiums of 60 year olds to 6 year olds? That seems to border on … um … disingenuity?
Yes, insurance companies rush to collect premiums and drag their feet on paying out claims. I’ve had to make payments and apply for claims–I get it.
But I am very unsatisfied with how my government operates in certain sectors, and relatively more satisfied with private sector alternatives where there is true accountability via competition and individual/family choice!
There are a lot more sick kids dying in Africa–more than a million a year, due to lack of clean water and malaria. I’m not sure what systemic problem you’re referring to–any emergency room in this country must treat all comers, regardless of status or ability to pay.
Writing in the Times of London, Minette Marrin tore into Michael Moore’s praise of UK’s National Health Service.
“While there are good doctors and nurses and treatments in the NHS, there is so much that is inadequate or bad that it is dishonest to represent it as the envy of the world and a perfect blueprint for national healthcare,” Marrin wrote. “It isn’t.”
She called Moore a quack and reviewed the present situation in Briton, which recently saw a woman with a difficult preganancy turned down by 2 hospitals for lack of beds.
“At least 20 NHS trusts have even worse problems with the hospital-acquired infection clostridium difficile, not least the trust in Kent where 90 people died of C diff in a scandal reported recently,” Marrin wrote.
“Many hospitals are in crisis. Money shortages, bad management, excesses of bureaucrats and deadly Whitehall micromanagement mean they have to skimp on what matters most.”
Now the left will simply dismiss Marrin as a hack columnist for the evil billionaire Sir Rupert Murdoch; theirs is a cartoon world.
But the London Daily Mail reported: “Record numbers of Britons are travelling abroad for medical treatment to escape the NHS — with 70,000 patients expected to fly out this year.”
Now medical tourism is not unique to Britain. Americans also travel to India where the care is just as good and the prices cheaper, even after paying for air transportation.
But Britons get their health care “free,” right? The Daily Mail reported:
The first survey of Britons opting for treatment overseas shows that fears of hospital infections and frustration of often waiting months for operations are fuelling the increasing trend.
Patients needing major heart surgery, hip operations and cataracts are using the internet to book operations to be carried out thousands of miles away.
India is the most popular destination for surgery, followed by Hungary, Turkey, Germany, Malaysia, Poland and Spain. But dozens more countries are attracting health tourists.
Add to this an earlier report of Britons flying to Egypt or pulling their own teeth because of a shortage of “free” dentists, and you have a system that is the medical equivalent of FEMA.
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2007/10/28/brits-outsource-health-care/#more-2136