George Bush, Secret Socialist

Nearing the end of a catastrophic presidency George Bush seeks redemption in odd ways. Having wrecked Iraq he takes aim at Iran. Having denied global warming, he asks others to fix it. Having waged war on a credit card, he mimics fiscal prudence in symbolic budget battles with Congress.

It's all too little and too late; sort of like Britney Spears staying home a night a week in hopes of being named mother of the year. But for Bush, it's never too late to do some damage, which brings us to a tough topic for Britney and Bush: the health of children

In a saner world, Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill would be unexplainable. The basic facts:

SCHIP insures 6.5 million kids in families earning less than 200% of the federal poverty level, or $41, 300 a year for a family of four. States can set lower limits and many do. The bill Bush vetoed raised eligibility to 300% of poverty, extending coverage to 4 million children. The cost: 35 billion over 5 years. Bush makes two arguments: we can't afford it and even if we could, it's creeping socialism.

Bush's math is as fuzzy as ever. He says his budget strengthened SCHIP. Read the fine print. The $5 billion he'd add over five years is only a third of the inflation rate. That means a substantial cut, not an increase, in the number of children covered.

He says the bill he vetoed covers families of four earning as much as $83,000 a year. It's true, but only in one state, New York, which somehow brokered an eligibility limit of 400% of the FPL. He could have pared New York back had he not shunned negotiations sought by the bill's cosponsor, Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa.

The real eligibility limit for a family of four would be $62,000, qualifying it not for free insurance, but only a cap on its annual medical expenses set at about $3,000. Bush says it would rob them of "initiative."

Before agreeing, do something he never does. Imagine it's your family living on $62,000, shelling out $1,000 a month or more for health insurance. Now add $10,000 in bills, an 'adjustable' mortgage, a daughter looking at colleges and $3 a gallon gas.

Behold: A middle class family, circa 2007. Poor? No. Living the American Dream? Not even close. In need of a hand? You bet, and the sooner the better.

Most eligible families earn far less than $62,000. If a family member has a preexisting medical condition they pay far more in premiums--if they have insurance at all. For the children, millions of them, health care that ought to be a right is out of reach.

After seven years of war, gluttonous pork barrel spending and massive tax cuts, Bush saying we can't afford health care for our children is like a father coming home to say there's no money for groceries because he spent it all on drink or at the track. Thus the need for a second argument, that the bill is 'European' or 'socialist.'

If this were a movie it would be funny. Until Bush held them up at the border, seniors flocked to Canada for lower drug prices. They'd have swum to Europe if it weren't so far.

As for socialism, we have it now. Government pays the lion's share of health care costs and gets less for it every year because it can't tame the insurance industrial complex. Bush cries 'free market' but his pork fest of a Medicare drug bill stifled competition and guaranteed industry profits. It's called corporate socialism and Bush is its Lenin.

Amazingly enough, Republican presidential candidates stumble over one another in a rush to back him up. As a wise man said, never underestimate the capacity of an entire social order to commit suicide.

Republicans in Congress may have keener survival instincts. Their choice: to feel the gratitude of the children or the wrath of the adults. Democrats gave them time to mull it over while they batter them with negative TV ads. In one, a droll child threatens to stop having his picture taken with Republicans until they get him some health care.

The ads follow up a Democratic radio pitch featuring young Graeme Foster, who thanked SCHIP for footing his hospital bills after an automobile accident. Republicans answered in their usual style, peddling false charges that the family defrauded the program.

Yes, it has come to this--Republicans swift-boating twelve year olds. You must admire the chutzpa it takes for the folks who gave us Harry and Louise to question a young coma survivor gamely facing life with a paralyzed vocal chord.

One wonders how Harry and Louise are doing 14 years after fretting over Hillary-Care. Do they still worry about high prices and big bureaucracies or did they reach Medicare eligibility? No doubt they could teach the Fosters a thing or two about waiting one's turn.

Republicans look both slimy and clueless. It doesn't matter if the Frosts are secretly middle class; middle class families can't pay their health care bills either. To help them government must play a bigger, smarter role, as in every other developed nation.

We pay twice what any other country pays for overhead, as much as 30 cents of every health care dollar. "Socialist" Canada is second at about 16 cents. Until voters find out that Aetna charges 20 cents to do what Medicare does for a nickel and that federal law guarantees their right to go right on doing it, real change will elude us.

The Clinton, Obama and Edwards plans all include options to buy insurance through government. In quality and price, their public plans will blow private plans out of the water. They spend their time reassuring us we can keep current coverage. They should also explain why so few of us will.

Republicans are better than Democrats at debate because they still look to think tanks for policy while Democrats look to pollsters for themes: Republicans say SCHIP costs too much and sends us down a slippery slope to statism. Democrats say Bush hates kids.

The voices of children should be enough to win this round but to get universal care through Congress Democrats must explain why we need government not only to expand access but to bring down costs. That mean adults getting on the radio and telling us what they know about the cost of corporate socialism.

Comments

[research]

Congress seems to like their lifetime "socialized" health care! Why not just let all of us have the same?

[dadw5boys]

YOU SHOULD ADD IN ALL THE KICK BACKS THE BUYERS FOR INSURANCE COMPANYS GET. MOST GET THEIR MORTAGES PAID, OR CAR INSURANCE, OR COLLEGE FOR A KID, OR ANYTHING THEY NEED JUST TO BE ABLE TO SELL TO A INSURANCE COMPANY.

[mamacat]

I had a discussion with a man from a Scandinavian country about their socialised medicine. He told me that he did not consider it socialised medicine. He said that he, quite simply, equated it with having democracy.

This individual explained it to me by asking a question. (Paraphrasing) "How can you call it democracy if after you pay taxes you can not afford medical care for your children?" I was not used to thinking of the whole issue like that, but to someone who grew up with medical care available to all, it obviously made perfect sense.

I think we should remember, America is the only industrialised country on the face of the planet where the interests of insurance companies are put ahead of the interests of children. Would providing medical care for children be a step toward socialised medicine, the way Medicare was? I certainly hope so.

I guess we should also remember that a political party that prides itself (today) on being conservative (meaning anti-progressive) would of course be against anything that can be perceived as cutting into the profits of insurance companies. Given half a chance, they would probably do away with Social Security and Medicare. That is why they call themselves conservatives.

[Bongborg]

despite all their pretty commercials with happy people

[deminmo]

The cost is in lives. How about an ad featuring kids and adults waiting in hospital emergency rooms, since that is the only way they can get medical care? Or a shot of a 65 year old who died because he or she couldn't pay the rent and pay for perscriptions.

Why not make available to Congress the costs of medical care (basic) for a family of 4 from all major private insurance companies. How about the cost of someone fighting diabetes, heart disease and old age, with only Medicare to pay for all medical costs? Or even the 25 year old confined to a wheelchair because of a birth defect for the rest of their life, needing care
24/7 and being denied because the Medicaid they used to get has been cut 30%?

They wouldn't believe it would they?

[Forest]

If radicalism and welfarism are two features endemic to socialism, indeed, Bush's corporate capitalism is right on the money.

[rabun666]

Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor, same old story. As far as any politician complaining about government health care they should complain to themselves and each other.

[Spider53]

No question about it! The bush places into common practice what the Reverand Martin Luther King charged the Republicans with doing: providing socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.

The extreme wealth generated from the war profiteers like Halliburton have gone to cheney and his gang while the humongous debt has been evenly distributed over the entire spectrum of our society.

[Pdubya]

Both the current system and the proposed system won't work. Nothing is free, no matter who is in charge.

The question that needs to be addressed is this: Why is it expensive?

It is expensive because of the enabling Congress and House's lobby bobbing.

It is expensive because of enabling tort that is in favor of insurance companies.

It is expensive because doctors must carry gross amounts of liability insurance and pressured not to perform their hypocratic oath to the less fortunate.

There are many more reasons, but essentially those are the big ones. The government is already in charge of the system, and we want to put it in charge again?

It was also mentioned above that Bush's cloaking of stating that he increased SCHIP's funding (but not against inflation thus a net loss). Well, don't you realize that this will happen when the Fed regulates and governs it? Duh!!! It will be the same wolf. Just that the cloak will be blue, not red.

The only system we need is the one between a doctor and the patient. No one else. No insurance company. No governent. No frivalous lawsuits. Tort and lobby reform!

[maddogbitesback]

Doctors don't live on air. They have overhead costs. Nobody expects something for nothing. Just reason.

A big reason for higher costs in America are the paper work costs. If the government pays then the costs of billing are halved.

Frivolous lawsuits = when you doctor drops your child after delivering him and he dies on the floor. Frivolous = when your doctor removes your good kidney and leaves in the bad one. How about when he amputates the wrong leg. Frivolous is when it doesn't happen to you. Judges determine what is frivolous.

So - you are really poor and the baby is really sick and it costs one hundred dollars just to enter the door of the doctors office. Well maybe you hope the fever will go down and the crying stop or maybe you decide to eat beans for a month. You choose. Because American doctors are really really expensive.

[deminmo]

I never have blamed doctors. Many work to help a
patient pay with or without insurance.

[Hoelder]

Why do you think Europeans think we are stupid? France has the best health care system and all you can hear on the other side of the Atlantic is ridiculing their drinking and smoking habits and complain about their frog legs food choice. Europeans wonder mainly on how it can happen that people that claim to live in the "greatest nation in the world" can vote for a party that outright lies to the constituents - the Republican party - and they get elected. Then I would resent to get some guidelines on all kinds of issues like global warming while the credibility of politicians is less than stellar. All they see is rampant greed with a lack of human compassion. 85% of Europe see the US as the biggest liability to world peace. When you throw Europe and socialism into one pot, you do not make a lot of friends and people see this as arrogant. Besides health care is a constitutional right in some of these countries. Human rights which the US is on the commission for at the UN are not another medal of pride for the US. Sometimes it might really good for Bush and his corporate buddies to shut up and listen, because if the cow dies, there ain't any more milk. Who do you think will come to this country as immigrant and work hard loosing more money for health care when you can get much better positions in Singapore, UK, Dubai etc.?

[aleco]

It's true, Americans are stupid. The Europeans have an expression, "What do you take me for, an American?" Here's an example: The federal government offers its employees a variety of health insurance plans. Years ago BlueCross BlueShield was not the cheapest. Other plans offered similar coverage at a much lower cost. The federal government forced the other plans to raise their premiums so that BlueCross could compete. An outrage, but it was futile to complain. That's the problem. People feel powerless. We tend to accept our fate without a fight. Who's going to listen to us? Our government is so corrupt that the average person doesn't stand a chance. And it's never going to change regardless of who is in power. Although the Democrats will throw a few more crumbs to the people.

[Paul]

The US spends more than the entire Defense budget just to administer - administer, not deliver - healthcare. Yet 40% of the population can't afford it and insurance company CEOs get rich.

A system that inefficient does not deserve to continue. I thought the "free market" was supposed to be the most efficient way ever to deliver goods and services?

But Socialism works better.

Why is that?

[Overd0g]

It doesn't work better for me.

[ElNito69]

The basic tenet of Socialism is: From each, according to his means, to each according to his needs.
Social Security is the biggest socialist program.
I hope that when it comes time for you to retire, you will refuse to take its payments. Or if you are now retired you will not apply for its benefits.

[maddogbitesback]

Overdog;

How would you know whether it works or not if you refuse to try it?

[maddogbitesback]

I don't know where you live but maybe you could live in France or Canada. It works there.

[mpgarr]

This blogger has it wrong--this is not socialism--it is crony capitalism that Bush and his type like so much--it is ok for his class to rip off the evil government-especially since they can really get right to best government teats--they get the bulk of the mother's milk while the rest of us get the droplets-this is what the conservatives really meant when they talked about "trickle down...."

[eyecon]

>>He says the bill he vetoed covers families of four earning as much as $83,000 a year. It's true, but only in one state, New York, which somehow brokered an eligibility limit of 400% of the FPL. He could have pared New York back had he not shunned negotiations sought by the bill's cosponsor, Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa.

[lthuedk]

Secret socialist? If anything the Bush dictatorship is flaming nationalist socialism incarnate. It's a Trotsky/Strauss/Hitler-modified approach, but nevertheless an undiluted totalitarian enterprise with all the bells and whistles.

It's both sad and tragic that the regime's supporters cannot come to grips with their Neo Con identity, which is, at even cursory inspection, the epitome of anti_American socialism. O.K., to make it more palatable, I'll call it militant corporatism.

The background paints a clear picture of where the junta's ideology was born and who was and is involved in it's making.

http://www.light-to-dark.com/lenin_trotsky_strauss_and_kristol.html

http://www.light-to-dark.com/pox_americana.html

http://www.light-to-dark.com/birth_of_irving.html

I'm afraid Republicans have lost their identity and patriotism in one motion.

[Tennessean]

Hey, wake me up when it's time to sign up for the 'socialized medicine,' will ya? I'll be first in line. And, I'll bet "stalkin malkin" will be right behind me, with the rest of the wingnuts.