A Message to Republicans Who Voted Against the Children's Health Bill
My name is Paul Simon.
I earn my living by writing and singing songs. It's a very old and low-tech profession that feels increasingly age-appropriate. I am honored to have the opportunity to express my opinions concerning SCHIP.
I am the father of four healthy children, knock on wood, but if they get sick or need medical attention I don't knock on wood; I take them to a doctor whose care and attention I am, fortunately, able to afford. Millions of American children do not receive the same medical care. They are uninsured.
Twenty years ago, I co-founded The Children's Health Fund with Dr. Irwin Redlener. Our organization provides mobile medical units with doctors and staff to serve the pediatric needs of poor communities across the United States. In the twenty years since we began, we have grown incrementally, but as of last year we had recorded over 1.2 million doctor/patient visits.
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew devastated a large portion of Southern Florida. Our medical units were there to help. When Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast with an almost Biblical force, The Children's Health Fund had units working in those communities within a week. There was very little outside help -- no FEMA, no Red Cross.
But there were scores of mini-vans and trailers loaded with food and supplies from hundreds of churches around the country. I watched with wonder and admiration as the church people opened their hearts and got to work helping people on the Gulf Coast whose lives has been destroyed. They did not debate whether they could find a compromise or alternative way of helping. They opened their hearts and started to repair a dire emergency.
The president's veto of the re-authorization of SCHIP was a heartless act.
Thanks to groups like Families USA and the Children's Health Fund, Congress is getting closer and closer to overriding the President's veto -- and children of hard working American families are getting closer to receiving affordable health care through SCHIP.
I am asking those of you who supported the veto to reexamine your conscience, to find compassion in your heart for our most vulnerable and sweetest citizens -- our children. I am asking you to change your vote. If you do, I believe it will be one of the proudest days of your life.
Thank you,
Paul Simon
To learn more about this issue and to take action, please visit www.familiesusa.org
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Ha, repub's are a joke. Look at Nancy Reagon and "Ronnie." All of a sudden, she pushed for stem-cell research because it would have helped her "Ronnie." Repub's always cry compassionate and values and associate them with their party. Americans are so blind, they actually believe this nonsense. Repub's are more than happy to spend trillions on war and death, but saving an American child? No way, no how.
So the bill only benefits American children? I assume you mean that all prospective beneficiaries will have an immigration background check prior to being awarded the free goodies. Yeah right.
SCHIP is a good thing for our country. Unfortunately, the political atmosphere in the nation has become so polarized that the two main sides, on practically every issue, fight tooth and nail against each other, no matter how ridiculous the opposing views are from the outset. Conservatives are so afraid of the big, bad, boogeyman socialized medicine, that they oppose any program that smacks of it. More's the pity. Cons have become so reactive regarding issues that they actually oppose health care for our most precious asset- our children. They are willing to look like Simon LeGree instead of giving an inch in an argument. How sad, selfish, and self-defeating.
While it is true that there will be families with higher incomes that qualify for a share of cost program under SCHIP, those families are in high cost of living areas such as New York or Los Angeles, among others. There is absolutely nothing wrong with letting these people keep more of their paycheck instead of spending it on overpriced medical expenses.
It seems to me as if the priorities of our conservative brothers and sisters are sorely out of skew. They need to reconsider those views in the face of the overwhelming need for this program. They need to open their minds and hearts and do what they know is right, and damn the appearance of political weakness.
I am with you, Mr. Simon. May God bless you and further the wonderful work you and your organization provides, and I sincerely hope that soon there will be no further need for it.
The 'occupier' of the White House, Paul, has never been concerned with the welfare of ANYTHING beneath his self-convinced aristocratic station. The type of massive redistribution of wealth he's forced FROM the poor and middle class TO the 'already' extremely wealthy, the last few years, has not been seen since the 1920s in the years before The Great Depression. Just devaluating of the dollar by printing extra money to HIDE a bad economy, or mortgaging the future of OUR country to China's banks, are CLEAR indications he has NO CONCERN about what happens to ANYONE else's children in the future,...
I apologize for being so cynical, but I see ANOTHER 'one-party-system', K-Street orchestrat
Either that, or it's ANOTHER of CONgress' corpto-coi
How do you know all the recipients are hard working? I know that I, the unwilling supplier of their free goodies, certainly am. I certainly hope that families with 80000/yr incomes can't benefit.
Where's Dobson on this "family" issue? And 80Gs in Manhattan with Federal, State and City taxes and four kids and a spouse is poverty level.
Where do you live? Nebraska?
you can say that again! i live in southern california. 80g's is nothing!
$60,000 in the Chicago area puts you on the "wrong side of the tracks".
Dobson? Pro-Birth Christians?
After birth, it's "Hasta La Vista, Baby"
Don't live in Manhattan then. If you only make 80Gs, you shouldn't be living there. Don't tell me we're going to subsidize anyone who wants to move to some ridiculously expensive location. Oh gee, I only make 250,000 a year, but it's so expensive on Maui, please give me free health care! Disgusting.
Hard-working? I admittedly know next to nothing about you, and would like to keep it that way, but I have noticed you seem to spend a lot of time opposing every liberal post on almost every blog here. Are you saying you get paid for that?
Oh, sure Overdog, people that are making 80,000 a year are just dying to go on government programs. Story in point: I make about $39,000 a year. I had to get a hip replacement. I paid $1000, and the insurance company paid the other $23,000.
The kicker? If I hadn't been insured, it would have cost me 50,000. Also the anti-coagulant that I took for 3 weeks afterwards would have cost $1,500 dollars, on top of that. But, let's worry MOST about whether we're insuring kids TOO HIGH. Yeah, that's a big priority. Let's get you on universal health care, and get you a heart transplant, how's that sound?
Think about what you just stated. You call medical care "free goodies".
If you had any sense of this issue beyond sound bites you would know that you are paying FAR MORE for "free goodies" to millions of people every day. It is better to treat people sooner rathe than later in a doctor's office instead of the most expensive units in the hospital where they are treated now, the ER and the ICU.
Let me make is simple for you. And once of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
How do YOU know they are not?
How do you know what percentage are hard working and what percentage are not?
Would you deny 1,000,000 kids health insurance because the parents of 1 kid could afford it? (Sure you would)
You are right. Absolutely they would!
RDixon needs to get his head out of his arse. He has swallowed the Republican line hook, line and sinker.
We shall actually SAVE much more than we spend in the SCHIP authorization bill. It will save our emergency rooms, and permit children to get their vaccinations and families to pay the rent and provide for their children.
Bush can spend over $200 BILLION IN ONE YEAR ON IRAQ, BUT CANNOT AFFORD $35 BILLION TO PROVIDE FOR HEALTH CARE FOR OUR CHILDREN AT HOME.
Something about that is very, very basically wrong. Perhaps, there should be a line on our tax forms going to the IRS, which reads the amount or percentage of our taxes which shall go to pay for the war in Iraq, and the amount we pay for SCHIPS, and we should be able to check the box and redirect the amount to the SCHIP program and away from Bush's war.
I support the troops, and by failing to fund Iraq, THEY GET TO COME HOME.
I haven't swallowed anything.
And I am not swallowing the fallacy of your argument.
If you can refute what I said, then do it, and I will listen and maybe change my mind.
If all you got is veiled insults and completely ignore the facts I presented, then you are, to me, no better than the likes of Bill O'Reily and I will ignore you.
I have yet to hear a single person explain to me why a family making more than $50 K per year deserves government welfare and as it is right now there are some in the SCHIP program that are in that income bracket.
The bill Congress sent to Bush makes it possible for families in even higher brackets to get the handout.
Call me what you want, but I do not see people who make more than $50,000.00 per year as poor and needy.
And nothing you say will change my mind about that.
Bush's veto of this bill is the only thing the man has done since taking office that I agree with.
And I also think that trying to make a political issue out of government welfare for the lower middle class is about as much of a winning proposition for the Democrats as the rabid anti-gun issue has been.
Looking more and more like a ship of fools with no captain to me; the Democratic party that is, and I am seeing the inevitable losses resulting from bad decisions in the next election.
The Republicans don't have to do anything to win; just sit back and watch the inept Democrats shoot their feet off and fall over.
Maybe you haven't heard that nationwide, hospitals will bill individuals without insurance between 2 and 4 times what they will charge a health insurance / HMO companies for the exact same procedure, in large part because the insurance companies just refuse to pay more. (I believe it was 60 minutes that broke this story)
That option is NOT available for persons without insurance, their inflated bill will be turned by the hospital over to collection agencies that are given authority to take someone to court or damage their credit report.
Republiscums seem little different from the democraps, however, in that both participate in these 'close' votes that NEVER quite pass ANY Bill that might have a negative affect on the corptocracy that runs OUR country from the shadows.
The SCHIP program would have better oversight than CONgress provides of the preznutz, you can be sure, because ANY oversight would be better than NONE.
How does it help OUR debt or the economy if the supposed family making 40K to 50K faces a hospital bill greater than a years earnings and so then must file bankruptcy and see their house foreclosed upon by banks?
Anti New-Deal republicants have tried to kill ANY government to public assistance since FDR, 'they' feel OUR taxdollars are much better spent pursuing geopolitical aggressions, against countries that are NO threat to us, for natural resources.
Maybe the bracket has been extended, just maybe, because the cost of living has gone up in the past 6+ years w/o a real adjustment to wages.
Gas prices are way up. Have you noticed?
Food prices are way up. Because gas prices are way up. And, because ethanol derived from corn (instead of sugar cane or switchgrass) is driving up cattle feed prices.
And maybe there are gates as to just how mucy assistance you qualify for based on the level you fall under in the full range of incomes this S-CHIP bill covers? There's a formula - not just a truck "handing out" cash willy-nilly.
Regardless of all of that, the program is about $35Billion over 7 years (versus what is expiring - $24Billion over the past 10 years). Here's the link to the current program: http://www
Here's the link to the currently vetoed bill: http://tho
One more thing ... helping those on lower incomes with health care costs reduces the burden on small businesses that employ these people. If Republicans are all about entrepreneurial opportunities, then this helps small businesses. But, if they're all about big businesses prospering and continuing to step on the middle and lower classes, they'll continue to veto this bill under sound-bite political motives.
RDixon:
If that family who makes $50,000.00 a year has a child with a devastating disease or debilitating chronic health problem that $50,000.00 means NOTHING IN TERMS OF WHAT THEY WILL SPEND TO CARE AND COMFORT THEIR CHILD!
Are you completely devoid of any common sense,
compassion or awareness of how little $50,000.00 is today with OIL JUST REACHING $100.00 A BARREL, College is out of reach for these families and health care costs are impossible without additional help for their child(ren).
It is NO WONDER why the Republicans lost the Senate and House in 2006 if your logic and reason is reflective of Republican crass and callous thinking! If you enjoyed 2006, you'll be giddy after 2008!
Let's see, a family of 4 with income of 50k in Fairfaz County (suburb of DC will get you:
Yearly rent for 3 BR apartment 24k
Car maintanence 1K
Insurance 1k
Food 8k
School supplies & sport equip. 1k
Gasoline and transportation 3k
Clothing 2k
Taxes 10k
Car payments 3k
Phone/Electric 1.5
Big ticket items to be replaced
like vac, TV and furniture.
Just add 10k for areas where rent is very high in areas like NJ.
Mandatory healthcare is the answer! Employers shouldn'd be forced to buy into a "plan," employees should be able to pick a provider (fee same for all insurances
It is done very successfully in Germany where healthcare cost overall is much lower.
$50K?
First of all, insurance for my family of three when I was RIF'd was $900/mo. $10,800 per year.
Secondly, that was for 80% coverage.
Anyway, I realize that some people insist that a family be totally bankrupted by medical costs and die if they cannot afford to pay. These are people who do not believe in being civilized.
Often, these are the same people who believe that the CEO of Exxon should make more than $50K an hour.
"$200 BILLION IN ONE YEAR ON IRAQ"
How about Blackwater? 160,000 of them. The grunts earn $900/day. For 240 days/year [the usual amt minus weekends and holidays] that's $34,560,000,000.
For 365 days/year = $53 billion.
Not including the higher-ups and Mr. Prince, owner.
This entire debate is so false - I can't imagine any parent who can afford private medical care for their child would want to forgo it. Thus, any child seen by a medical professional under SCHIP ought to be covered! My guess is that 99% of the time that child's parental income would fall under the proposed SCHIP guidelines. What am I missing here? Are a few hundred or thousand or whatever rogue parents, who manage to game the system, be able to break it? This administration has spent money so recklessly elsewhere, but it has suddenly found religion when it comes to our kids' welfare? Gimme a break!
Kudos to Paul. Aren't the good Republicans in politics for the children? Isn't is time to remind them of this?
"The president's veto of the re-authorization of SCHIP was a heartless act."
And the Democrats drastic expansion of the SCHIP program which forced the veto?
That was not heartless for political gain crap?
Instead of focusing on and actually doing something about what they were elected into to power to do, the Democrats choose instead to go back to what has NEVER worked for them; tax the poor and give it to the middle class.
Not to mention hitting the Repo base right
where they live (so to speak), by paying for
SCHIP with a huge tax increase on cigarettes.
By funding it this way, & by permitting those
who did not 'really' ('desperately?') need
assistance, the Demos flagrantly pissed off
the Repos.
If you think we're gonna get 'Socialized
Medicine' by imposing a cigarette tax, please
think again.
And who in their right mind would want socialized medicine (or socialized anything)? It does not work...kee
Doofus, you are well-named.
Actually, I am all FOR socialized medicine,
even if it just covers children, but not by
trying to get only smokers to pay for it.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
