Whose Side Are They On?

The lead item in today's CongressDaily (subscribers only, sorry) is "Republicans Blast Democrats For Not Negotiating Further On SCHIP Legislation." Basically what we're seeing here is exactly how deeply ingrained the Republican Party's loathing of cute children is. Representative Deborah Pryce (R-OH) is the ringleader of a group of 45 House Republicans sufficiently vulnerable to electoral defeat, that they decided to vote to spend some money to help sick kids get medical care. The George W. Bush, driven by the same small government principles that have led him to lavish hundreds of billions of dollars on failed wars and tens of billions more on corporate subsidies, decided to veto the plan.

Pryce and her colleagues then decided to turn around and blame not George W. Bush who vetoed the bill and not the congressional Republicans who prevented the bill's bipartisan supporters from overriding the veto but instead . . . House Democratic leaders for their unwillingness to water the plan down further. Thus Pryce et. al. get to signal to their child-hating paymasters that, despite their vote, they have big businesses back and are doing the very most they can within the confines of objective political constraints to make sure that working and middle class families get no help with their health care. Pryce wants them to realize that she isn't a less fanatic supporter of this child-bankrupting agenda. If anything, she's working harder on behalf of America's tobacco companies and insurance firms since she's out there running real risks on their behalf.

Photo by Flickr user Betsssssy used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

child-hating paymasters

That's bigoted and unfair, Matthew; they love children with large trust funds.

max
['I mean, that's a significant market segment with large amounts of disposable cash. What's not to love?']

Posted by max | October 11, 2007 9:38 AM

Awww, that's the cutest one yet! Sooner or later this will have to break them down.

Posted by Just Another Greg | October 11, 2007 9:38 AM

Just pointing out something most of you wouldn't know because you don't happen to live in Pryce's Congressional District -- she's already announced she is retiring and isn't running for another term.

Posted by peep | October 11, 2007 9:39 AM

"to make sure that working and middle class families get no help with their health care"

And just why should middle class families get help with their health care?

Posted by ostap | October 11, 2007 10:08 AM

And just why should middle class families get help with their health care?

???

They think the government should provide everybody with health care.

But let's remember that the Democrats hate poor people - they want to tax poor people to give a gigantic new entitlement to the middle class.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2007 10:20 AM

I s'pose and hope that MrYglesies' tongue is lodged firmly in his cheek. In the larger sense the S-CHIP controversy is between two ethical systems. For a certain kind of Repub the center of good things is self-sufficiency and the center of bad is theft. To many of them, taxation is theft unless it specifically improves their lives--as for example, national defense or road building. Everything that one CAN do for oneself, one SHOULD.

Of course, I agree that they live in a dream world. But in that dream world they do not hate children--much as it might seem so to us on the left.

Posted by JohnMcC | October 11, 2007 10:30 AM

Pryce is an odious human being. I was actually a bit surprised to see that she was backing S-CHIP given that she's not running for re-election next year and that she seems to hate people. Seeing that she's attacking Democrats instead of the real problem with getting this legislation passed (i.e. Bush) comes as no surprise to me - she's always been a partisan hack despite her supposed "moderate" badge. My guess is that she voted for it because her neighbors in Upper Arlington, despite being moderate Republicans, generally like children and she has to go back and live around them next year.

If it weren't for our crazy gerrymandering that waters down the Columbus vote by mixing it with a bunch of rural counties, she wouldn't even be there now. She basically kept her job by appealing to the rural values voters. I suppose another explanation is that maybe, just maybe, some of those folks called up her office and told her that S-CHIP was the only way their kids were getting support. Maybe she has a heart after all.

Posted by NonyNony | October 11, 2007 10:32 AM

Good to see Democrats continuing to stand tall on this one. I'm guessing Bush will have to eat it. Vetoing this is not like vetoing a resolution saying that puppies are cute--no, it's actually politically way worse than that.

Then again, I'm sure Bush can take the hit for not signing this one. He can always fall back on his great record on...uh...

Posted by Lev | October 11, 2007 10:47 AM

Nice strawman, Matt. The reality is, there's a simple philosophical difference. You believe that government run health care will be efficient, and save money. Conservatives believe that it will run more like the DMV.

Based on the "it's for the children!" arguments your side uses, I suspect that you understand the whole DMV nature of the problem, and continue to try and get rid of that argument through clever marketing ploys.

Forget the Frosts - even though, IMHO, they are a lousy example for your side of the argument. Address the actual substance: the supposed efficiency of government run health care.

The feds can't run intelligence agancies, they can't run an education department, they can't build a useful embassy in Iraq. I could go on, but you get the point. Health care is a large scale thing, and - in general - the feds suck at large scale things. Why do you believe that health care will escape the general suckage zone?

Posted by James Robertson | October 11, 2007 11:24 AM

Health care's already in the suckage zone. Plus, we've seen it being done better in other countries, like France, Germany and Japan.

Posted by Dr. Victor Davis Handjob | October 11, 2007 11:34 AM

Mr. Handjob
Did you mean that health care was already being done in the glorious Roman empire by the brave macho and well chiseled Roman men ?

Posted by gregor | October 11, 2007 11:41 AM

What we need is a thow-the-weak-in-a-pit healthcare system like Sparta had. None of this freewheeling, anything-goes S-CHIP socialism, clearly a lingering vestige of homosexual Athenian decadence.

Posted by Dr. Victor Davis Handjob | October 11, 2007 11:49 AM

And it's *Doctor* Handjob, gregor.

Posted by Dr. Victor Davis Handjob | October 11, 2007 11:50 AM

You believe that government run health care will be efficient, and save money. Conservatives believe that it will run more like the DMV.

That's why every plan currently on the table for government-sponsored health insurance allows people to choose private insurance if they prefer. If the private sector is truly more efficient, it will kick the ass of the government-run program.

It's kind of funny that you decry "clever marketing ploys," by the way, when you reflexively employ the catch-phrase "government run health care," which no one is even talking about. The debate is strictly about health insurance.

Posted by Steve | October 11, 2007 11:57 AM

Conservatives believe that it will run more like the DMV

Not to put too much of a point on it (how would single-payer coverage be like the DMV, any more than any other sort of coverage that the doctors have to submit invoices for?), I spent considerably less time at the DMV getting a new license (in DC, no less!) than I ever have when going to the emergency room, even for minor incidents.

Also, if you don't to "believe" anything-- you can look at evidence. What is health care like in France?

Posted by Tyro | October 11, 2007 11:59 AM

Also, James, the children of the Frosts had the benefit of "government" health care via SCHIP, and my grandmother had the benefit of "government" health care via Medicare. Neither of them seemed to complain that this was anything like dealing with the DMV.

Posted by Tyro | October 11, 2007 12:01 PM

Re: Thus Pryce et. al. get to signal to their child-hating paymasters that, despite their vote, they have big businesses back and are doing the very most they can within the confines of objective political constraints to make sure that working and middle class families get no help with their health care.

Actually I would think that businesses (other than the insurance business of course) would be rather in favor of the sChip expansion since it would enable them to shift employee's children from the company health plan to the public plan, thereby saving major $$. Even insurance companies could find a silver lining in this since it will make their cherry picking easier if sick and disabled kids are shunted off to sChip rather than being smuggled onto their parents' workplace group policies where they can't be denied coverage and where group rates prevent them from being priced out of the market.

Re: Conservatives believe that it will run more like the DMV.

Um, get with the times. Most DMVs have been thoroughly revamped and run quite smoothly. You can do most of your stuff online in fact, and if you do have to go in, you'll find it no worse than transacting moderately complicated business at a bank or mortgage office. Of course the RealId act could foul all that up which may be the reason the GOP was so hot to pass it. Can't have efficient government after all!

Re: Why do you believe that health care will escape the general suckage zone?

See: Medicare. Now I'm sure there are some screw-ups, but most people on Medicare will tell you that they've had far less hassle with Medicare than they did with their health inusrance before retiring.

Posted by JonF | October 11, 2007 12:29 PM

NonyNony,

Although Pryce has been a hypocrite on many (if not most) issues, she actually has a rather good record on child health issues. She was a leader in the fight to get more Graduate Medical Education funding (which is financed by Medicare) for children's hospitals. I suppose that having a daughter who died of cancer at age nine trumps ideology on these matters.

Posted by Vadranor | October 11, 2007 2:11 PM

The feds can't run intelligence agancies, they can't run an education department, they can't build a useful embassy in Iraq.

Does anyone reading this kind of argument get the feeling conservatives have a bit too much of a vested interest in making government suck?

The thing that's ridiculous about this is that S-CHIP already exists as a government program. We don't have to make ridiculous comparisons to completely unrelated, cherry-picked boondoggles; we can compare it to S-CHIP, which, as noted above, already exists.

Posted by Bo | October 11, 2007 2:20 PM

Al, raising the tax on cigarettes will lead many poor people to quit smoking, thereby lengthening their life expectancy so that they can spend more time with their loved ones.

Family values.

Also, I thought conservatives believed in self reliance and taking responsibility for yourself (like by quitting smoking when it becomes too expensive).

Posted by bob | October 11, 2007 3:29 PM

"If the private sector is truly more efficient, it will kick the ass of the government-run program"

What color is the sky on your planet? You don't really believe the govt won't subsidize the govt-run program, do you? See, as one example of many many many, "rural" electric cooperatives.

Posted by ostap | October 11, 2007 11:15 PM

"Address the actual substance: the supposed efficiency of government run health care."

Good point. Take a look at health outcomes and costs for the VA (hint, not just substantially better than private sector health care--- heads and tails better.)

As Bo said above, comparisons to the DMV and the embassy in Iraq indicate that you're basically not familiar with the subject matter. There are a number of government-run healthcare and health insurance programs. They have measurable performance. If you think the results are poor, bring it to the table and make your argument.

You'll have a hard time though. It appears that across the board, the results are surprisingly good. This isn't because the gov't is intrinsically better at running a healthcare/insurance program. Perhaps what you're seeing is DMV-level performance. It's just the current private insurance patchwork is so fundamentally broken that it dreams of meeting DMV standards.

Posted by MattNotYglesias | October 11, 2007 11:49 PM