It strikes me as very odd indeed that the US Administration would willingly deny medical aid to the children of America. 7 billion dollars in extra costs: For God's sake! That is but a tiny fraction of what the American Administration squanders on arms!

I am South African, we are not a rich country, and there is corruption and mismanagement here. But one thing we all agree on: our children must get all the help that they can - this includes medical aid - and our government is forthright and very active on this. In our law, about the worst crime that can be committed is against a child; the courts are ruthless on this.

Eight million American children without cover: to deny them this cover must either be some insidious form of insanity, or there is an agenda behind it.

One of the surest ways of debilitating and ultimately destroying a people is to attack their children.

I am always amused by those who rant against the religious right but use Jesus when it suits their paradigm. The staggering inconsistencies on the right, left, and center are stunning.

For the record, the vast majority of the uninsured children are eligible already, but simply not signed up. In Texas alone, there are 700,000 children who are ALREADY eligible but not signed up.

2nd: There are far more people paying for insurance out of their own pockets who make less than the limits for the new proposal. In fact, 17,000,000 Americans who live under the poverty line actually manage to purchase their own insurance. How do they do it when they are making one third of the amount being proposed? Meanwhile, this program will make those folks eligible who earn three times the poverty level. Most of these folks' standard of living is something the rest of the world can only dream about.

The debate really centers around whether we want to insure children regardless of whether their parents make an effort to do so themselves.

Perhaps we do. If so, let's frame the debate around reality and ask questions such as; "Do we want to provide insurance to the children of those who prefer to spend their kid's insurance money on themselves?" Perhaps we do. "Do we want to provide insurance to the children of those who prefer not to work full time?" Perhaps we do. "Do we want to provide insurance to the children of people who make a decent salary but decide to have more children than they can reasonably afford without pinching pennies?" Perhaps we do."Do we want to provide insurance to the children of people who cannot seem to make it on the same salaries as tens of millions of other families who manage quite well?" Perhaps we do.

But let's have the appropriately honest debate.

This is not about folks who cannot afford insurance. It is about folks who have other priorities.

This is also about how we get our healthcare in America. If we simply allowed these families (all families) to purchase their healthcare with pre-tax dollars as employers get to do, we could get well over half of the uninsured insured.

KEN BLACKWELL COMMENTARY: SCHIP: The Mad Hatter Matter

Drawing from imagery in Alice In Wonderland, the conservative Republican commentator argues that SCHIP shouldn't be transformed into a middle-class entitlement that will eventually degrade our entire health care system: "Congress’s free-spending majority is nudging the nation toward government-run universal health care. Its SCHIP expansion is a case in point. Government has proven itself an inferior provider of health care coverage. Medicaid’s budget busting waste and poor quality of care are the prime examples. Still, liberals in Congress believe the best way to address the waste and inadequate care provided to many Americans of low income is to make the program a middle-class entitlement. Most conservatives support helping the children of low-income families get health care. And because they support helping them, they opposed the current SCHIP bill that Congress passed and that President Bush vetoed. This bill was not about helping children of low-income families. It was about growing state-controlled single-payer health care coverage and political gamesmanship. Such coverage will damage the health care system all children need. Medicaid already provides free health care for children living in poverty. Most of those children are in families making less than $20,000 a year. SCHIP applies to families making too much to qualify for Medicaid. Presently, most of the program’s recipients are in families making between $20,000 and $40,000 a year. But, many recipients under the bill passed by Congress would be children in families making $60,000 or more. That’s not a program to assist those of low income. That’s the expansion of middle-class reliance on government-controlled health care. It creates a new government entitlement. Our nation’s concern for the poor should not be exploited for the purpose of government expansion."

SNIP

He continues: "The question here is: Should the federal government provide free health care to middle-class families, transferring millions of children, now covered by private insurance, to a government plan funded by taxpayers? The answer is no. The challenge is to change health care. The system is enormously expensive, and needs improvement. We need lower cost, more efficiency, and better options. The disagreement is on how to change it. There are two approaches. The private approach says we should move away from employer-provided health care to a system where individuals control their health care choices, carry their coverage with them if they change jobs or work at home, and that gives them the flexibility to choose the best provider for their needs. This would reduce the cost of health care, so that more people of low income could afford coverage. Then, fewer people need SCHIP, and SCHIP could do more yet cost less. The big-government approach would abolish private insurance. This approach would have citizens pay more taxes to the government, which then becomes the sole source of income for health care providers. The government would then have all the leverage needed to tell those working in health care what to do and how to do it. Government-run systems waste countless of billions of dollars and take decisions away from patients and doctors, putting them in the hands of government bureaucrats. Medical careers then pay less and attract less-talented people. Lack of incentives hurt research and development of new medicines and techniques. And, lack of accountability means lower quality of care and fewer choices for patients. The whole system suffers."

bookerrising.blogspot.com/2007/10/ken-blackwell-commentary-schip-mad.html

I am always amused by those who rant against the religious right but use Jesus when it suits their paradigm. The staggering inconsistencies on the right, left, and center are stunning.

For the record, the vast majority of the uninsured children are eligible already, but simply not signed up. In Texas alone, there are 700,000 children who are ALREADY eligible but not signed up.

2nd: There are far more people paying for insurance out of their own pockets who make less than the limits for the new proposal. In fact, 17,000,000 Americans who live under the poverty line actually manage to purchase their own insurance. How do they do it when they are making one third of the amount being proposed? Meanwhile, this program will make those folks eligible who earn three times the poverty level. Most of these folks' standard of living is something the rest of the world can only dream about.

The debate really centers around whether we want to insure children regardless of whether their parents make an effort to do so themselves.

Perhaps we do. If so, let's frame the debate around reality and ask questions such as; "Do we want to provide insurance to the children of those who prefer to spend their kid's insurance money on themselves?" Perhaps we do. "Do we want to provide insurance to the children of those who prefer not to work full time?" Perhaps we do. "Do we want to provide insurance to the children of people who make a decent salary but decide to have more children than they can reasonably afford without pinching pennies?" Perhaps we do."Do we want to provide insurance to the children of people who cannot seem to make it on the same salaries as tens of millions of other families who manage quite well?" Perhaps we do.

But let's get real about what we are debating.

This is also about how we get our healthcare in America. If we simply allowed these families (all families) to purchase their healthcare with pre-tax dollars as employers get to do, we could get well over half of the uninsured insured.

Gosh Scotch - Am I the only one here who finds it strange that Rethuglys would find spending $7 billion a year to keep an additional 62,000 otherwise productive families in the middle class from poverty forced by catastrophic illness less of a contribution to our national welfare than -

$4.5 Billion spent by a Rethugly Congress to build the USS Ronald Reagan, which has a life expectancy in any serious war situation of something on the order of 3 seconds and costs $160 million a year to operate (in harbor) and $3 million a day to operate at sea.

$500 billion in "new money" spent on the Iraq war, with "surge" costs escalating to nearly $2 billion a week in a lost war.

The $700 billion being spent annually on Defense and the Military including the "ex-budget" amounts for Iraq...

Amazing!

“The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct, and immediate abolition of poverty." Dr. King - Chaos or Community

The measure of being poor and living in poverty is not the same thing. We will always have the poor, for there is no such thing as permanence in reality. So we can not measure what the poor get in the USA, since wealth is social, with the past, too many factors have changed. But I contend that empirically what folks are measuring are the opportunities to purchase what was in the past – a want, with what we today would be call – a necessity. Folks are not dumb, they can measure what the “Jones” is getting – that demand has increased our national wealth and productivity.

We have in our hands the possibility of changing the face of poverty in America and show the world; the problem is the growing heedlessness. It appears we want a Middle Class revolution in this nation and we are going to get it. It would cost less in the long run if we improve the care of all children in this nation. The armies report of the state of fitness points out how poor our children do even in the Armies Physical tests.
If now is over 50% of disposal income for housing alone, economist have pointed out how dangerous that fact alone is. 75% of personal bankruptcy is cost by unseen medical costs. To walk into an emergency room in one day can cost up to 2k’s without medical coverage. Partisan politics is going to produce some un-intential consequence and Brother Jesus ain’t got nothing to do with it.

BT:

Two wrongs don't make a right. Because we spend money on A (and it may or may not be considered a waste) does not mean others should have carte blanche to waste money on B.

The problem was not the intention of the bill. The problem was the method used to accomplish the goal. I and a lot of people feel there are better ways to go about it using market solutions. I’m not against national health care but I’m not for these type of attempts…I prefer something like Switzerland or Singapore’s plans…look into them.

"If now is over 50% of disposal income for housing alone, economist have pointed out how dangerous that fact alone is. 75% of personal bankruptcy is cost by unseen medical costs. To walk into an emergency room in one day can cost up to 2k’s without medical coverage. Partisan politics is going to produce some un-intential consequence and Brother Jesus ain’t got nothing to do with it. "

I agree. However this bill would not solve that issue for most people.

Like I said, better ways...

Not sure what excessive spending on non-essentials has to do with having an honest debate about SCHIP....but hey, if a non-sequitor affords BT an opportunity to bash evil Republicans, it's gotta be all good.....

Hey, Scotch - So you Prty of Business types are against making a Net Value Argument on Spending?

Wow... I'm dissapointed.

"Most of these folks' standard of living is something the rest of the world can only dream about." - JB

The rest of the world's standard of living should never be used as a measuring stick on how we treat our own.

The Jesus that I follow is the one who spent his time helping those that are least among us. I'm not into the Prosperity Gospel Jesus.

So, my Jesus. Yes, he'd be on board with S-CHIP.

"Most of these folks' standard of living is something the rest of the world can only dream about." - JB

"The rest of the world's standard of living should never be used as a measuring stick on how we treat our own."

This will be the next big moral discussion: why draw a distinction between our citizens and other needy human beings?

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. One important commitment of the Federal government is to help America's poorest children get access to health care. Most of these children are covered by Medicaid, which will spend more than $35 billion to help them this fiscal year. For children who do not qualify for Medicaid, but whose families are struggling, we have the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP.

Washington is now in the midst of an important debate over the future of this vital program. I strongly support SCHIP. My Administration has added more than 2 million children to SCHIP since 2001. And our 2008 budget increases SCHIP funding by 20 percent over five years.

Unfortunately, more than 500,000 poor children who are eligible for SCHIP coverage are not enrolled in the program. At the same time, many States are spending SCHIP funds on adults. In fact, based on their own projections for this fiscal year, Minnesota, Illinois, New Jersey, Michigan, Rhode Island, and New Mexico will spend more SCHIP money on adults than they do on children. And that is not the purpose of the program.

This week, congressional leaders sent me a deeply flawed bill that would move SCHIP even further from its original purpose. Here are some of the problems with Congress's plan: Under their plan, one out of every three children who moves onto government coverage would drop private insurance. In other words, millions of children would move out of private health insurance and onto a government program. Congress's plan would also transform a program for poor children into one that covers children in some households with incomes up to $83,000. Congress's plan would raise taxes on working people. And Congress's plan does not even fully fund all the new spending. If their plan becomes law, five years from now Congress would have to choose between throwing people off SCHIP -- or raising taxes a second time.

Congress's SCHIP plan is an incremental step toward their goal of government-run health care for every American. Government-run health care would deprive Americans of the choice and competition that comes from the private market. It would cause huge increases in government spending. It would result in rationing, inefficiency, and long waiting lines. It would replace the doctor-patient relationship with dependency on bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. And it is the wrong direction for our country.

Congress knew that I would veto this bill, yet they sent it anyway. So on Wednesday, I vetoed the SCHIP bill. And I asked Members of Congress to come together and work with me on a responsible bill that I can sign -- so we can keep this important program serving America's poor children.

When it comes to SCHIP, we should be guided by a clear principle: Put poor children first. I urge Republicans and Democrats in Congress to support a bill that moves adults off this children's program -- and covers children who do not qualify for Medicaid, but whose families are struggling. If putting poor children first takes a little more than the 20 percent increase I have proposed in my budget for SCHIP, I am willing to work with leaders in Congress to find the additional money.

Ultimately, our Nation's goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage -- not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage. By working together, Republicans and Democrats can strengthen SCHIP, ensure that it reaches the children who need it, and find ways to help more American families get the private health coverage they need.

Thank you for listening.

END

BT;
Net value has nothing to do with my comments as I did not express an opinion about SCHIP. My position, once again, was far more narrow and was an attempt to get some of the emotion based upon false assumptions out of the argument. I simply say that if we are going to argue the merits of SCHIP or the lack thereof, we ought to argue the facts on the ground. As I said, perhaps we (as a society) DO want to insure the children, but let's not pretend that at three & four times the poverty level (particularly when both parents are not working full time as so many millions of those who will be funding the program do)that we need to do it because the parents can't.

ETS, I agree that the standard of living around the world should not be the basis for how we determine what is right here. My comment was merely in response to someone from South Africa about how much better SA treated its poor. As the population that we are talking about for the SCHIP program are far from poor (by even our standards, much less those of South Africa), I was simply pointing that out.

what are jesus's views on NAFTA?

rikyrah;
There is nothing wrong with your religion informing your political views. Just don't be surprised/dismayed/angered when others do the same thing. Therein lies the problem.

As I said, I am continually amazed and amused by those who condemn something in others that they do themselves.

BT;

Your monochromatic views of people so distort your perceptions that I often wonder whether you hear even a fraction of what others say. You lump folks into a group and then draw inferences from their comments that are actually more a reflection of what YOU think they meant as representatives of the caricaturized group that you sorted them into.

I am continually taken aback when I read the emotive constructions placed upon my words. Perhaps racism's history has imposed a high context modality upon you and others, but the truth of the matter is that I find a low context style preferable in the blogosphere. For all that people pride themselves on their cultural/ intellectual acuity, I am continually struck by how often they just get it wrong.

Makes having a meaningful conversation rather difficult but I do see that it affords you great fodder for ridicule which seems to be very important to you for reasons that remain unfathomable to me.