George Bush Wants Kids to Get Sick and Die

Just kidding. He'd like kids to stay healthy. It's just that if they get sick, he wants them to die. Thus, his plan to veto a bill expanding S-CHIP, a program to give health insurance to kids. The issue, as The New Republic explains is that "for every ten people who gain insurance through s-chip expansions, between two and five fewer will get private insurance" because along with giving insurance to people who currently lack insurance, it'll also be an opportunity for some people to move out of the nightmar world of private health insurance which, of course, is bad if your job in politics is to represent the financial interests of private health insurers.

Comments

when you say "as The New Republic explains" I always read it "as Stormfront explains"

Posted by mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | July 16, 2007 12:14 PM

and in fact, The New Republic Healthcare Forum has some pretty interesting ideas from Marty and the gang.

Posted by mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | July 16, 2007 12:24 PM

It seems to me that we have two rational ways to provide health care.

Choice 1) If you ain't got the money to pay then we let you die on the streets because why should we give welfare to people who ain't entitled to it.

Choice 2) You provide reasonable health care to everyone so they don't die in the streets.

There are variations on choice 2. how much health care do you provide and how much do you expect users of health care to pay.

If you are a free marekt conservative, then why provide health care to people who can't pay? We don't provide autos to people who can't pay. We serverely limit what poor people can eat and where they can sleep. Why spend money on health care? If they die then the Darwin gene pool improves. Of course, that is if they believe in Darwin.

So why pick on our conservative President. He is letting poor people go to emergency rooms...sometimes.

Posted by neil wilson | July 16, 2007 12:29 PM

no, i think the headline should read: "George Bush wants kids to go to the emergency room every time they get sick."

Posted by howard | July 16, 2007 12:36 PM

If private insurance is so great, I wonder why Bush and company aren't pushing to private Medicare and the VA?

Posted by Ron | July 16, 2007 1:33 PM

Matt, you're usually better than this.

(a) Bush supports renewing SCHIP, and wants to increase funding by $5B, and

(b) I don't know what the Senate is proposing (the Times article doesn't appear to go into that much detail), but I think the general beef with the bill as it passed the House is the idea that the federal government ought not be subsidizing health care for people making $80,000 a year. I suppose reasonable minds can disagree on this, but I think our priorities right now ought not be subsidizing the health care for people who are at the lower bounds of the AMT.

Posted by Sean | July 16, 2007 4:46 PM

Of course $80,000 is not just $80,000, it entirely depends on the context. A family of five in NYC making $80,000 is not the same as a family of three in West Texas making $80,000. The family in NYC could very well not have insurance on their children because they just can't afford it, while the family in Texas is living large. The reality is that the family in NYC will put their kids on SCHIP, the family in Texas probably won't even think about it as an option (but its nice to know if their employer stops providing insurance at least their kid will be able to get coverage without having to mortgage the house).

Posted by ricky | July 17, 2007 10:59 AM

George Bush has always fought against CHIP. See this clip from 1999:

Austin Chronicle: Where Was George?

By Louis DuBose

JUNE 1, 1999: "We were promised that presidential politics wouldn't interfere in the business of the state of Texas," Austin Rep. Glen Maxey said in February. George W. Bush was at the National Republican Governors' Conference and House Democrats had just walked out of a caucus where they had discussed CHIP -- the federal/state Children's Health Insurance Program. "Where," Maxey asked, "is the governor?"

Designed to provide low-cost health insurance for children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford health insurance, CHIP, Maxey argued, was essential for Texas. Texas is second to California in the number of children without health insurance, and this program brings in three federal dollars for each state dollar spent. And it would provide insurance for 500,000 of the 1.4 million children currently without it -- if the CHIP eligibility level were set at 200% of the federal poverty level. Yet while the governor was at a conference mugging with Jesse Ventura, someone on the Bush staff informed House Democrats that the CHIP eligibility level would be set at 150% of the federal poverty level -- a decision that would push 200,000 children out of the program.

"It shouldn't even be a fight," Maxey said. "Gov. Engler, Gov. Wilson, Jeb Bush in Florida, all of them are participating in this program. [New Jersey Gov.] Christine Whitman is even going to 300%." But for some reason, the extreme (and religious) right wing of the Republican Party opposed CHIP. And Bush -- or at least his staff -- refused to budge. Maxey promised a fight when the governor got back home to Texas. "If he ever comes back," Maxey said with a wry smile. He never did.

Posted by David Siegel | July 18, 2007 12:37 PM