Letting the CHIPs Fall
Our regular poster, twowheelfish, has goaded me out of my silence. Way to go, twowheel! Since you’re an avid fisherman, you know I have to take the bait.
But mostly, I’ll toss this post off to you faithful visitors to mullentown. What can we liberals, who see nothing particularly wrong with moving toward national health insurance (you know, that gol-durned socialized medicine) in the first place, do about this piece of plywood who occupies the White House for 15 more months?
I know the answer to that question: We gotta be patient and wait for our turn. I guess I was simply offering a rhetorical scream in the wilderness.
And what about the Democrats, who now control both houses of Congress? Where is their power — their will, really — to muster up necessary votes to override George W. Bush’s veto of SCHIP (state children’s health insurance plan) reauthorization?
I’m absolutely floored, totally undone, by this man’s complete lack of courage, compassion and lack of political will when it counts. One reckless decision of his seems to bleed right into another, day after day after day. One longtime conservative and very active Republican in Salt Lake City who has given piles of money to his party mentioned the other day that he sees Bush as absolutely having destroyed the Republican Party, especially since the election last November.
Even Bush’s once-blindly loyal followers here in Utah are losing faith.
What does it take to find even the slightest serving of compassion in this country anymore?
(I’m drawn to this thought because I’m back to the Jean Smith biography, FDR. I let Ted borrow it and he read the 900-page monster in about two weeks. Now there was a president who knew compassion. The fact that he could blend it with political instincts and timing made all the difference at a moment when this country was seriously deteriorating.)
Where do Americans go from here? Will we ever get an insurance plan that addresses the needs of the population? If we can’t even extend coverage to children and increase their benefits when necessary, I don’t know where we as a society can go from here.
Canada, maybe? I don’t think they’ll have us!
October 4th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
When a need is so obvious that even a hard shell Republican like Sen. Hatch is leading the fight, you’d think even His Shrubness would get it. But I guess somethings are beyond his grasp regardless of how simple they are.
I think its a @*&!$ shame that the rest of our Repub elected congressional folks are so dedicated to supporting the Prez that they can’t see the value either.
I never thought I’d say it, but Way to go, Orrin!!!
October 4th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Cut our defense spending in half, and use that money on health care and education. That’s what we need to do. But we never will. Just ranting.
October 4th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Ranting is good. Let’s all rant. Rants can work, even if only temporarily. Then let’s vote to turn the whole thing over next November.
October 4th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Yeah, Mr. Hatch and I agree on exactly two things…stem cell research and CHIP. But that’s two more than Mr. Bishop or Mr. Cannon and I agree on and that’s something. Canada may not take all of us but I repeat my promise to move there if another Shrub clone wins the White House. In other words, if a Republican not named Rudy Giuliana wins (and that is still hard for me) I am outta here. I will rename myself happyincanada.
October 4th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Rudy Giuliana indeed. You know who I mean. Sheesh.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I’m not going away this election.
Go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1AhaH1ozbg
and listen to Dennis Kucinich’s interview.
Dennis’ net worth is under $50,000 unlike the multimillionare Democrats that are the “front runners”. He understands the plight of the homeless, the poor, the sick, the disabled…..
Orrin Hatch
is a catch
that’s better
thrown back.
October 6th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
What is the purpose of CHIP, to provide health insurance to kids whose families can’t afford it. And if they don’t have access to health care, there are two probable results: the kid dies, or the kid takes on a health condition that will bleed the system of money for years and years. Bush said it well: “Everyone has access to health care, just go to the emergency room”. What is the difference in cost between an immunization against a treatable disease versus treating the disease itself: just add a few zeros.
The US has the highest GDP going to health care of any other country (15%), in fact nearly double that of comparable western countries. The per capita cost of health care in the US is over $4,500 while that of European countries like Sweden, Switzerland and Germany closer to $2,500 per capita. The US has over 45,000,000 people without any medical insurance while those same European countries that have “socialized” medicine covers all citizens. And what does our system buy? Well, I have the best health care in the world, much of it supplied by University of Utah graduates and managed by either IHC or University Health care programs. But the quality of my health care does not trickle down. The infant mortality index is a good indicator of the quality of health care in a total population: the US has the worst in the western industrial countries (greater that 7 per 1,000 live births), higher than that of Italy, UK, Australia, Germany, Switzerland or Sweden (which has about half the US death rate).
What CHIP does is lower the cost to society of health care to the citizens over their lifetime. Our health care system is tragically broken for many more people in this country than just the 45 million without insurance: just ask the UAW. This CHIP program is a no brainer, the same way that having your kid get a diptheria immunization is a no brainer. Bush, though, has no brain.
October 7th, 2007 at 11:51 am
If only this was a simple ‘reauthorization’ of SCHIP, I believe Pres. Bush would have signed it. But instead the Dem majority more than doubled the funding( from 25B to 60B), making it likely that families earning 4X the poverty level (or about 80k) could be eligible. I don’t know why any family earning that much needs to have tax dollars pay their kids’ medical bills.
I’m all for changing the medical care system–when i was laid off for several months a few years ago i found it daunting that at the worst possible time I had no reasonable access to insurance. But I guess I’d rather the system be shaped with a state-level scalpel, rather than a federal level axe.
October 7th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
msteele, it is the states that decide the eligibility for sCHIP hence New Jersey (and other states that are expensive to live in) is being taken to task by Bush ’cause their poverty rates are higher than those in Nebraska and thus they are paying for kids that elsewhere might not be considered in poverty . This program is not a federal axe in carrying out the obligation, only one in generating the funds.
But think more about your first response: why should the feds pay kids medical bills? Fairly heartless response, IMHO, cause if the families had health insurance the kid would be covered already. But of the 45 million or more in USA that do NOT have insurance are all of them under the poverty line? Nope but we as a community still will end up paying their medical bills one way or another. I, for one, would much rather pay a few cents per capita into a federal program that allows for childhood immunizations, etc. instead of having to pay dollars into local insurance programs that have to raise rates to cover indigent care in local emergency rooms.
October 8th, 2007 at 6:19 am
twowheelfish, interesting thoughts on the states, I know some have already expanded chip to include adults…
I think maybe you misunderstood my statement on the feds paying for kids’ insurance. I’m all for chip where it’s needed, but am concerned at the expansion for income levels where it’s likely not needed. You indicated earlier how much more we spend for health expense than other industrialized nations. There are many complex reasons for this, but a couple of them are that we litigate at the drop of a hat and have shown a willingness to overmedicate and overtreat. I worry that some number of families with insurance now at the new income levels (50-80K) that would be covered by the expanded chip would drop their kids’ coverage and let it be covered by taxes. For example, with my companies’ insurance I could save a couple hundred a month if I dropped my kids coverage and let someone else cover it…
October 8th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
“What does it take to find even the slightest serving of compassion in this country anymore?” If you want to see compassion, you have to stop looking for it in institutions and start looking for it in individual humans. I know lots of compassionate people; I don’t think there’s a shortage.
To me it seems an inferior compassion, if it is compassion at all, to be generous with (tax) money taken from others with the threat of imprisonment. Sorry. I guess that’s why I’m a conservative.
Keep up the good blog.
October 9th, 2007 at 10:13 am
David,
Nice to see you here at mullentown, in your non-anonymic and insightful way. Keep coming back!
Mark