After falling 13 House votes short last week to override President Bush's veto of expanding the State Child Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP), bipartisan champions of the bill are offering a new version to the floor.
The bill will still cost $35 billion and cover 10 million Americans (mostly kids) in households making more money than the rock-bottom limit to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private insurance.
However, the new version addresses Bush's main reasons for why he vetoed the bill:
- Federal money won't cover illegal immigrants;
- No childless adults will have access to the program;
-Children of families with incomes exceeding three times the poverty level will be ineligible: $61,950 will be the ceiling household income for a family of four.
The New York Times reports, "Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, said the income limits in the new bill 'completely obliterate' Mr. Bush's argument that Congress wanted to provide coverage to families making $83,000 a year, which is about four times the poverty level for a family of four."
This has been an ugly month in America for loving our neighbors. First came the initial veto of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act on the grounds that it might cover some struggling lower-middle class Americans, and not just the desperately poor.
For a mean-spirited encore, Bush quietly announced last Friday evening he intends to cut back funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), a move which will literally cut the heat to 30 million officially desperately poor Americans this winter.
Then the Dream Act, a bill which would help the children of illegal immigrants achieve citizenship by graduating high school or joining the American military, failed a Senate test vote.
It's an ugly season in Washington when the keepers of power are actively working to deny heat and medical care to those in need, and to refuse citizenship to achievers brought unwittingly to the U.S. as small children and, in many cases, willing to fight and die for America.
We are in dark and dangerous territory as a country, and the new chance to pass the child health insurance bill could provide a badly needed glimmer of light.
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Eligibility is capped? Families earning 3X the 2007 poverty index with no means testing.
Now instead of paying for their children's health insurance, targeted taxpayers are to foot the bill.
What are these loving families willing to pay for their children's medical insurance, Florida increased the $15 a month premium to twenty dollars per family, 55% of the families earning 2.5X the poverty index cancelled coverage as did 66% of those earning 1.5-2X the poverty index.
The friendly 60K for a family of 4 is bull, lets look at the Democrats last SCHIP poster family. The Frost family it is a family of six so it may earn up to $82,830 a year, it does not matter how many homes they own or cars they drive American taxpayers must pay their bills.
To deny that families earning $82,600 a year or that own millions of dollars worth of real or personal property are exempt from this program is a lie. Mr. Ried it is a lie, Ms. Polosi it is a lie, Democratic leadership of congress, it is a blatant lie.
Borrowing a phrase from the democratic playbook "America we can do better" we can demand that the leadership in congress stop using children as a political wedge.
The SCHIP program should not become a victim of its own success, Congress needs to work with this administration and those across the aisle to repair and strengthen a program that appears to have lost its vision.
Government of the people, by the people, and for the people?
I am completely against "user" taxes. This is a Republican and neocon concept to eliminate a graduated income tax being the basis for paying for all government services, which is as it should be. Someone who is making $5.0 million/year should be more heavily taxed than some poor smoking schmuck who makes $30,000/year.
And the Democrats refuse to stop giving Cheney and Bush billions of dollars to continue the murder and destruction in Iraq being done in our names to create a permanent occupation with permanent bases, and to steal their oil. So much for the opposition party.
However, if anyone is looking for an extra $30 billion to fund this or any other program, look no more. The U.S. government has agreed to give Israel $30 billion of taxpayer's money over the next 10 years. Working people in the U.S. are forced to give money to subsidize the people in Israel, a religious state, each and every year of our lives. Why's that? What exactly do we get out of it except more wars and blood on our hands.
Does the $30 billion we taxpayers will be giving to Israel pays for them to have healthcare. Does that make any sense? We can't afford to give even our children healthcare, but we are forced under threat of imprisonment by our government to pay taxes every year to provide healthcare for the Israelis? $3.0 billion per year for 5 million Israelis buys a lot of doctors. To bad we don't live in Israel where money just pours down from generous countries like the U.S.
But, I also do not know why we transfer any money from one citizen to another or to a company or other entity. It is unconstiutional unless that citizen is performing a specific governmental service such as police protection.
So money for SCHIPP? No! Money for Isreal? NO! If you want tax money for such things than get an amendment to the constitution.