Somebody had to do it.
After months of negotiation and countless attempts at compromise, the Bush administration is still refusing to let New York and other states across the country expand their State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP). The president is refusing to back down from destructive new rules his Administration has imposed -- the sole purpose of which are to curb bi-partisan state efforts to insure more of our nation's children.
The reason? As the president himself put it: "I mean, people have access to health care in America. They can just go to the emergency room."
It is this politics of "not my problem" that has led to the health crisis we have today.
The bureaucratic barriers to coverage the Bush administration has imposed are not only fundamentally misguided, but also illegal...
...They conflict with the statute authorizing SCHIP. Moreover, they were issued without the opportunity for public comment, as required by federal law. Accordingly, I have joined Democratic and Republican governors from states across the country to bring a lawsuit challenging these new rules in court.
It didn't have to come to this. There is widespread bipartisan support for expanding SCHIP. Even many members of the president's own party have recognized how out-of-touch he is with the American people, and instead have chosen to support compromise legislation in Congress repealing these arbitrary rules.
Unfortunately, President Bush has repeatedly threatened to veto this bipartisan bill. In justifying his position, his administration has tapped into the politics of fear -- branding the effort as "socialism."
Of course, SCHIP has nothing to do with socialism. The government would be the payer, not the provider of care, and families would have a range of private plans from which to choose. But instead of engaging on the merits, the right wing has pulled out socialism from their parade of horribles in order to frighten the public.
The president has also said that those children who already have insurance will choose to give up their coverage in order to join the program.
If you talk to doctors, health care professionals, and state leaders across the country like I have, they know the President is flat-out wrong.
These are the facts.
In New York, we want to expand coverage to every uninsured child in our state. And even though experience at the state level has shown that few children drop their existing coverage in favor of SCHIP, we have instituted some of the most stringent protections in the country in order to both prevent any potential problem and satisfy the White House.
The Bush administration, however, refuses to compromise and work with us to cover these children.
Ultimately, the president just doesn't get it. There is a health care crisis in this country, but he continues to ignore the problem while vulnerable children without insurance "just go to the emergency room."
We all know the statistics. There are 400,000 uninsured children in New York. There are 8 million uninsured children in the United States.
These staggering figures are intolerable. On both a moral and practical level, we cannot allow this to stand. The president, however, continues to say the status quo is acceptable.
Children should not have to wait until they get sick enough to go the emergency room to receive treatment. Rather, they need preventive and primary care. Ensuring that children with health problems are diagnosed and treated in a timely manner will save money and save lives.
It is imperative that we all come together to reverse the Bush administration's attempt to override the will of Congress, the will of the states, and the needs of our children.
We will continue to defend our nation's kids - even if the President will not.
This morning I gave a speech to Fordham University students. SCHIP was among the topics. A video is available here.
Cross posted at Daily Kos.
The truth is, the concepts DO cascade to an inevitable rise of social conscience, which is a toothless orphan if it does not lead to a willingness to take action to raise everyone's state of existence, rather than just those of us in gated communities. Children's healthcare is just the "sharp edge of the wedge" of healthcare for all (and don't we need and deserve good health as much as someone who makes a hundred times what I make?), and healthcare for all is ultimately pointless, without a good living and worthwhile work for everyone.
Those who are afraid of "socialism" are ignoring the fact that we are social creatures, and can't be satisfied living with injustice around us. We can learn to tolerate it, as evidenced by the Republican party's adaptation to that condition; but there's something inhuman about their ready acceptance of poverty, ignorance, and injustice.
Socialism is NOT soviet communism. It's just a commitment to raising all people together; something a for-profit capitalist can't fathom, because it threatens the greed-is-good ethic. But there IS room for profit and comfort in a socialist system -- just not obscene profit, or comfort at another's expense. Those who can't envision a socialist economy see it as a limitation, but our future is limited anyway. We simply can't continue the way we are, and survive as a culture.
The choice is to die in a pile, with the rich on top, or find a way to exist as partners. Many would rather die last and rich: it's their idea of freedom. I'd rather live somewhat poorer, but know that I'm not taking from those who need it.
It comes down to the question of what makes us human. Eating others' livelihoods is just appetite, but sharing and creating new worlds is transcendent.
A government bureaucracy cannot have Charity. It's impossible. It can't care. It can't empathize. So what you are suggesting is both impossible and naive.
I am always surprised that liberals with such a heightened sense of their fellow man would fight for something like this. Let's see, we could spend hundreds of billions of dollars from now until the end of time on Americans, or we could spend that money to feed and clothe the entire world a thousand times over. Why is a New Yorker making $83k a year higher on your priority list than the millions around the world that will never make that amount of money in their entire lifetimes? Your argument takes off like an eagle and crashes like a turkey.
Oprah once went to Africa on a humanitarian expedition. While she was there, a reporter asked her why she had to go all the way to Africa to find someone to help, since there were so many needy people in Chicago. Her response was that needy people in Chicago have orders of magnitude more opportunity than those in Africa.
She offended a whole lot of liberals with that comment. They refuse to acknowledge that America is STILL the land of opportunity. But liberals aren't satisfied with opportunity, they want equal results, and condemn anyone that thinks otherwise as selfish, heartless, and greedy.
These are the same people who say that higher taxes on tobacco lead to lower usage. Lower usage would lead to less tax revenue. Therefore this bill is setup to fail in that it, in theory, destroys its funding mechanism.
It is always assumed that the poor choose not to work. And there are people that won't work but most are families just making it with no health care at low paying jobs. Like me, they do not make $50k a year.
Bush's comment reminds me of "let them eat cake" and the contempt behind the comment.
That shows what their priorities are: to shave and eliminate American labor, for the sake of profits. We know by now that no lie is too outrageous for them, and they've been lying from day one.
NAFTA was to replace American jobs with cheap foreign ones, pure and simple. And every refinement since then has been to make the job of outsourcing our livelihoods more efficient and profitable for the rich who now own our government.
It's no wonder the Republicans wanted to re-interpret the Second Amendment right to own arms to mean just the military. Nothing like an armed and angry public, eh? The NRA didn't like that much though, so they backed off.
Senior Fellow
Rockridge Institute
However a simple formula is to think sensible
and then think a little rediculous to the right. And nine times out of ten you will be right. The rediculous part comes into play as result of greed nine times out of ten.
When something is said: voted on; rejected; vetoed etc... think and think in depth about how and why the subject was vetoed; voted; on rejected etc.. and nine times out ten it was because of greed.
This is not government by the people, but government by and for private profit. The exact opposite of what it should be. They will veto any effort that will limit their profits. That's how simple it is. They've told us so baldly many times. You can see it in the character of our (elected!) officials. It's just a normal news day, when we hear of a Senator being arrested for cruising in a restroom, and then that same Senator shows us how stupid he thinks we are, by denying it and intending to stay in office.
It's time we started taking their word for what they keep telling us, by their words and actions, and start asking if bare greed and profit really are the soul of what makes our country great.
Because if they are, it's not much of a claim to greatness. If our country exists to enable a few to live high on the sweat of the many, this country is not worth fighting to keep, much less dying for.
If you need the help of an ordinary everyday citizen who is fed up with all this administration, I'll tag along.
Gemma :O)
That insensitive statement to the health needs of lower income children says it all. Every time Bush has a sniffle or headache he has immediate and complete access to the healthcare payed for completely by the taxpayer, which means that he and his family are enjoying complete socialized healthcare that Karl Marx could only dream of.
I challenge Herr "Uber-fuehrer" to put his own actions where his damn mouth is regarding this issue, disavow his "socialized" health care benefits and go to emergency rooms in the future.
Bush couldn't care less about the middle class and the poor. Where are his so-called Christan supporters on this matter. I suppose when they get sick they just prey, because after all, medical care is just a bunch of science.
Let's hope this excuse for a president continues to piss-off the majority of us, which leads to the ouster of the bunch of these Greedy Obnoxious People (GOP)from all levels of government.
Just find a way for PHARMA to plead your case, and its sure bet, SCHIP will avoid a veto, but how to find a way for that to happen? What's in it for PHARMA?
I AM SICK TO MY STOMACH OF THIS ADMINISTRATION