"Leland, in his last issue, struts out with a chip on his shoulder, and dares Bush to knock it off." -- Weekly Oregonian, March 17, 1855, among original uses of "chip on his shoulder" in An American Glossary by Richard Hopwood Thornton.
President George W. Bush has a chip on his shoulder and is daring Congress to knock it off.
He is the bully in this fight. His victory would be the defeat of millions of American children who would be denied federally-funded health insurance, called S-chip, State Children's Health Insurance Program.
If Bush's veto of the $35 billion, 4-million child expansion of S-chip is sustained Thursday, he acquires an ignoble conquest.
He will have beaten unworthy opponents -- children, innocents whose parents cannot get or cannot afford health insurance.
Bush and a small number of Republicans oppose expansion of S-chip to more of the 8.7 million American children currently without health insurance. They say the government should not provide children with health insurance. Instead, the government, Bush says, should just help people find private insurance.
And, apparently, he believes the government should do no more than that no matter what it costs. In money. Political support. Lives.
It's Bush and a small number of Republicans in opposition because expansion of S-chip received bipartisan support when it passed by wide margins in the House (265-159) and the Senate (67-29). Eighteen Senate Republicans, including Orrin Hatch of Utah, abandoned Bush. Hatch said on the floor before the vote, "It's unfortunate that the president has chosen to be on what, to me, is clearly the wrong side of this issue."
In Hatch's branch, there are sufficient votes to override the veto. Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs 15 Republicans to switch votes to declare victory for children in her House.
These Republicans need to ask themselves if they want to stand beside a president with an approval rating so low that he attends only, as his staff calls them "let-Bush-be-Bush" events with hand-picked Bush fans for audience members -- preventing unpleasant confrontational queries, say about why he denied health insurance to poor sick children.
They need to ask themselves if they want to cuddle up to a president who vetoed expanding a popular health insurance program for poor children -- one for which a Washington Post-ABC New poll in September found 72 percent of those surveyed supported increased spending.
They need to ask themselves if they want to be forever known as unkind and uncaring, the lawmakers who while spending untold hundreds of billions of dollars to wage an unpopular war refused to approve a couple of extra billion over five years to provide health insurance for uncovered American children.
They need to think about those ads the American Cancer Society is running on television talking about the ill-effects of deficient or absent health insurance on recovery from cancer. Is it right that, in the richest country in the world, survival would depend not on the availability of treatment, but on whether the patient was born with a silver spoon in his mouth? Do we just let poor children die?
But, for that matter, do we just let impoverished adults die? Americans would not. We are not unkind, uncaring people. That is not us. We rally round. We rush to aid. We support one another, and we're willing to pay to do it. Poll results support that. A CBS News poll in September found that 76 percent of those surveyed believed it was a very serious problem that 47 million Americans have no health insurance. A CNN poll in May found 64 percent of those surveyed supported national health insurance for all Americans.
Okay, that's just a clear majority of good-hearted, regular Americans. How about policy-setting Republicans? Well, one influential Republican spouted off in the New York Times op-ed section this week. It was Paul O'Neill, Bush's secretary of the Treasury in 2001 and 2002 and former chairman and CEO of Alcoa. He wrote, "We are sufficiently wealthy and advanced as a society that we should consider financial access to needed medical care a birthright."
American is a country of incredible goodness and generosity. That is who we are. That is what defines us. That is why this veto of a program to provide health insurance for poor children cannot stand. And that is why we must work to insure all Americans.
There is NO REASON for medical care to be FOR PROFIT.
This is nothing more than a huge power play. Liberals and leftist democrats froth at the mouth for a chance to expand government. It's what they want, it's what they do best.
FYI, while Bush was governor of TX, the CHIPS program expanded massively. Some of you liberals and leftist democrats may want to come up for air and take a look at why Bush is against this bill. I know, that's asking a bit much.
and for the record, while bush was governor of texas, his "compassionate conservatism" didn't issue a single pardon from the death penalty, even in cases where the evidence supported the person's innocence or at the very least their right for a new trial.
what about the money wasted on programs and policies that don't do what they were created to do? we could easily take some of the money from the abstinence education program (which is a joke since the idea of education should be to learn the truth) and use it to insure children who can't get insurance otherwise. why do you hate children?
Love
David Perkins
Americans react emotionally to media manipulation.
Americans will easily be FOOLED INTO VOTING for corruption all over again in state and federal government.
Americans DON'T LEARN.
Americans LEAVE THEMSELVES BEHIND while giving power and riches to the corrupt.
Bush, Maher and now you know this. The Dems knew it too. But they're playing politics! A long congressional fight over how Republicans don't want health insurance for children(which is flatly false) equals a win for Dems. They get political points and momentum going into the election year. Or they hijack Bush into signing a crappy bill equals a win. The Dems get to look like they can actually accomplish something all the while implementing socialized medicine for children. But instead they knowingly sent Bush a bad bill for political reasons, and so far by the looks of liberals in this country...its working. They could've sent Bush a bill he would gladly sign but didn't. Shameful.
Crap! a $.61 increase in the cost of cigarettes would only reduce the consumption by less than 2% in the adult population. It would decrease teenage smoking by 7% and help prevent teenage test smokers from becoming addicted. It would reduce the costs of smoking on the health care system by more than the proposed increase in the SCHIP program in the longer term. As far as a tax on poor people...how about another incentive to finally quite the goddamn things. The cost to smokers is not the price per pack...it is the price per lung!
If you don't like socalized medicine, we can expect you to forego your medicare coverage when it becomes your turn.
Pleas tell me that your post is only a ruse and not sheer lunacy. Kids are actually dying for lack of treatment. How many lives is it worth to continue this insane ideological crap.