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Graphic: University of Vermont
by Mark Silva
In eight days, a federally and state-financed program that provides health care for millions of children whose families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to purchase private health insurance will expire.
Democratic congressional leaders have agreed on an extention for the State Children's Health Insurance Program that could expand coverage to families earning up to three times the federal poverty level, about $62,000 a year for a family of four. The Democratic plan costs $35 billion over five years, compared with a $5 billion extension that the president supports.
President Bush vows to veto the Democratic plan -- though it also has drawn significant support among Republican members of Congress -- calling it a "federalization'' of health care.
Bush complains that Democrats are holding the program "hostage'' with its expiration looming. The president says they are trying to "score points'' with a bill which "they know will be vetoed.''
"Health coverage for these children should not be held hostage while political ads are being made and new polls are being taken,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address today. "Congress must pass a clean, temporary extension of the current S-CHIP program that I can sign by September 30th, the date the program expires.''
But Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, delivering his party's response to the president's radio address, insists that it is Bush who is playing politics with health care.
"In recent days the administration has tried to turn this into a partisan issue and has threatened to veto.'' Rendell said. "The health of our children is far too important for partisan politics as usual. A veto battle in Washington would expose millions of children to the risk of losing insurance.''
See the president's full address, and the full response:
This is the text of the president's radio address today:
"Good morning.
"In just eight days, the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- or "S-CHIP" -- is set to expire. This important program helps children whose families cannot afford private health insurance, but who do not qualify for Medicaid, to get the coverage they need. I strongly supported SCHIP as a governor, and have strongly supported it as president. My 2008 budget proposed to increase SCHIP funding by $5 billion over five years, a 20 percent increase over current funding.
"Instead of working with my administration to enact this funding increase for children's health, Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed. One of their leaders has even said such a veto would be a 'political victory. As if this weren't irresponsible enough, Congress is waiting until the SCHIP program is just about to expire before passing a final bill. In other words, members of Congress are risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point.
"The proposal congressional leaders are pushing would raise taxes on working Americans and would raise spending by $35 to $50 billion. Their proposal would result in taking a program meant to help poor children and turning it into one that covers children in some households with incomes of up to $83,000 a year. And their proposal would move millions of children who now have private health insurance into government-run health care. Our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage -- not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage.
"My administration remains committed to working with Congress to pass a responsible S-CHIP bill. In the meantime, I called this week for Congress to make sure health insurance for poor children does not lapse. If they fail to do so, more than a million children could lose health coverage. Health coverage for these children should not be held hostage while political ads are being made and new polls are being taken. Congress must pass a clean, temporary extension of the current S-CHIP program that I can sign by September 30th, the date the program expires.
"In addition to extending the SCHIP program, Congress needs to focus on passing fundamental spending bills -- especially the annual funding bill for the Department of Defense. Congress must also pass additional funding for our troops fighting the war on terror. We need these bills so we can get our men and women in uniform essential equipment -- like additional armored fighting vehicles that are resistant to mines and ambushes.
"The American people expect their elected leaders in Washington to work together by passing responsible bills in a timely manner. I am confident that with good will on both sides, Democrats and Republicans can do this. We can meet our obligations to help poor children get health coverage. We can meet our responsibilities to the men and women keeping our Nation safe. And we can do our duty to spend the taxpayer's money wisely.
"Thank you for listening.''
This is the text of the Democratic Party's radio response:
"Good morning. This is Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania.
"In the next few days, Congress will consider one of the most important pieces of legislation of the year - the renewal and expansion of the nation's health insurance program for children called "S-CHIP". A bipartisan group of congressional leaders has negotiated a compromise that is designed to cover a large portion of the 8.7 million kids in our country who do not have health insurance. This legislation should be passed with strong bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress.
"In recent days the administration has tried to turn this into a partisan issue and has threatened to veto. The health of our children is far too important for partisan politics as usual. A veto battle in Washington would expose millions of children to the risk of losing insurance. That's simply unacceptable. Our leaders have an obligation to enact this bill quickly and the President should sign it immediately.
"In fact, nothing speaks more to our obligations as a society than the need to provide for the health and well being of our children. The nation's governors have been working to expand health insurance coverage for children in a bipartisan way. Responding to the individual needs of their states, they have crafted programs that stretch public dollars and reach into communities where private insurance companies are not offering affordable coverage.
"In Pennsylvania, last year we created the "Cover all Kids" program. And now we are providing coverage to 93% of the children in families where the income is less than 250% of the federal poverty level. Last winter, with the approval of the Bush Administration, we expanded our program to cover even more kids.
"But Pennsylvania is not alone in creating innovative approaches to covering more children. California, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Vermont, Washington, Kansas and Connecticut are among the other states leading the way. The Governors of these states are moving on this problem because the private insurance market is not.
"Unfortunately, the Administration last month changed its position and announced new rules for S-CHIP that could halt the efforts of these and other states to cover more kids. If the Administration is serious about solving our health care crisis, it should be expanding, not cutting back this program which has made private health insurance affordable for millions of children. Congress should reverse this latest action when it votes on this new legislation.
"The S-CHIP program expires on September 30 - just 8 days from now. If the President vetoes this bill, 15 states will be without funding in October and many thousands of children will lose their coverage. The remaining states will feel the pinch in the months to come.
"Congress has been working hard on the legislation to renew the program and make more resources available for it. It has been difficult work to craft a bipartisan plan and to make sure it is paid for. When the nation's governors met together in July, a bipartisan group of 43 of us joined in a letter to congressional leaders urging them to do just that. Now all Members of Congress and the White House have an opportunity to enact this critical program. If you support providing health insurance coverage to more of our needy kids, I hope you will call, write, or e-mail your Members of Congress, your Senators and particularly the White House to let them know now is the time for Congress to pass this legislation and for the President to sign it.
"I recorded this message earlier this week and you are hearing it on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in my religion. On this day we are taught we must atone for our sins and remember our obligation to each another. So I can think of no better day to speak to nation on the urgency of ensuring that every child in this county has health care.
I"'m Governor Ed Rendell. Thank you for listening.''
Comments
The veto threat is yet another example of how GW favors the wealthy.
Posted by: lylepink | September 22, 2007 10:12 AM
RNC Bruce,
Why does President Bush hate poor American children?
Posted by: Doug Zook | September 22, 2007 10:50 AM
Let's see...Since your sister paper in LA is running a headline on its' web site this morning that the MORONS running the WH are asking for $195 BILLION MORE to fund a war(s) (2 or now 3 - you pick??) why is anyone suprised by this insanity???
Posted by: RB-Chicago | September 22, 2007 10:50 AM
What is the matter with the Presidents approach? This program is supposed to, and is covering children in families that do not have the means to provide or afford health insurance. It should not be used for anything else. The government is not going to solve this problem. You can just look at our current national health care programs that our government runs.... Walter Reed, Medicaid in some states can not even get specialists to be in the program due to their poor reimbursements, and even in Illinois Blago is behind billions of dollars in Medicaid payments. You really need to
be careful what you ask for.
Posted by: JSP | September 22, 2007 11:18 AM
George Bush's success in pushing his agenda reminds me of my favorite Groucho Marx quote. "The secret to life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that you have it made."
Posted by: CTurner, Durham, NC | September 22, 2007 11:26 AM
Let's deal with facts here how about it 1) 'Minors' are now covered under the 'new' S.C.I.P. PROGRAM up to 25 years of age!!! FACT 2) FAMILIES are 'indigent' in this S.C.HI.P. PROGRAM if they make up to $86,ooodollars a year!!! FACT 3) FEDERAL GOVERNMENTwill take them off 'private payer' insurance and PUT them on the government dole!!! GREAT PLAN !! And you wonder why it gets vetoed??? MORONS.
Posted by: Zyskandar A Jaimot | September 22, 2007 11:28 AM
Kids and the poor already have health care.
We will never have affordable health care until we fix the problems. We need to fix the health care issue but we cannot fix it unless we know how it is broken. For the answer, please see http://www.InteliOrg.com/
Posted by: Anonymous | September 22, 2007 12:41 PM
Doug, watch your hysteria again. Please explain to me how a family earning $62,000 a year is poor? Or, even a family earning $50,000 a year is poor? If these folks "can't afford" health insurance at $62,000 a year, then perhaps they need to re-examine their spending habits.
Stop the class warfare BS.
Posted by: John D | September 22, 2007 1:20 PM
I love how Bush says that the Congress is the entity that is endangering the children, when a majority of them is going to pass a bill GIVING THEM HEALTHCARE. He is the one who will veto it and effectively leave them without this aid.
For all you saying the Federal Government shouldn't put money toward paying for healthcare for children, where would you rather the money went? We are all being constantly taxed and indebted dozens of times over for Bush's insane war.
How can any of you pretend that Bush is actually trying to control spending? He simply doesn't want the money he plans on stealing from us to go back to our children. That would be quite a tragedy.
We need to get this guy out of office so we can focus on what is important.
Posted by: Daniel Greenwald | September 22, 2007 1:44 PM
Families between the 200% and 300% of the poverty level are 3 times as likely to have insurance than not. What would this do, put gov't insurance in the hands of those that don't need it.
Incremental Universal health care - Marxism creeping in.
TO DOug, if there ain't a gov't program, then you must hate the children.
What next Doug - food, clothing, housing, transportation??? All necessituies of life
Posted by: Terry | September 22, 2007 3:59 PM
John D.,
Why do you answer for RNC Bruce? Is there something you kids want to share with us?
Where are you registered?
Posted by: Doug Zook | September 22, 2007 4:07 PM
Doug, Bruce apparently is taking the day off so I thought I would answer your ridiculous question. Does that trouble you? And how often do you let Deranged John E answer for you?
Anyway, as usual, the questions don't get answered.
Posted by: John D | September 22, 2007 4:57 PM
Daniel Greenwald:
I respectfully suggest that you and others have argued from the perspective of a false dilemma, to wit: If you don't spend it on A, what would you prefer to spend it on? The dilemma you pose is false because it presupposes we must spend money one way or another.
How about not spending money as a choice for once? How about paying down the debt so that we no longer spend 10% of our federal budget just on debt service. Or even better, how about cutting spending on non-essential programs, and reining in the budget and spending abuses of Congress and the President? Doing any and all of the above would lower taxes and reduce inflation. These things would increase the buying power of the dollar and give the average Joe more dollars to keep. That, in turn, would allow more honest, hard working people to purchase their own health care coverage if they choose - and without any new federal spending program. It would also save a future for all those children you are so concerned about.
If, on the other hand, we don't rein in government spending and its inflationary effects, and simply go on spending huge quantities of money on all these programs, you will only insure that a healthy generation of children will grow up to inherit nothing but the ashes of our folly. If health care is our domestic Iraq, then spending is our domestic version of Global warming.
Posted by: John W. | September 22, 2007 6:20 PM
"Anyway, as usual, the questions don't get answered.
Posted by: John D | September 22, 2007 4:57 PM"
Pot, meet Kettle.
You have yet to provide PROOF POSITIVE, with any substantiating links to any story, that backs up your posted allegation here in the Swamp that Edwards pays as much for his suits as Bush does. I posted a story straight from the Oxxford Clothing company's website detailing the price range that Bush paid for his suits.
John D, "the Joseph Stalin of Streamwood" has no counter post that provides actual facts and figures.
When are you going to buy a spine and step up to the challenge?
Posted by: BC | September 22, 2007 6:49 PM
BC, I missed your post about Bush's suits. You see I don't spend my life scouring through all the Swamp items. Often once an item is no longer a main item and you have to scroll through that month's archives I don't bother. Plus, unlike you, I have a life.
BC, let me point this out for once and for all and then I am done with your inane, blithering, ridiculous, moronic fixation on suits and what people pay for them:
George Bush is a rich man. He buys expensive suits. He owns an expensive ranch.
John Edwards is a rich man, perhaps even wealthier than George Bush. John Edwards owns a multi-million dollar home. John Edwards regularly pays $400 for a haircut. I just got mine cut the other day, and with tip it came to $15. John Edwards will fly his hair stylist cross country to the tune of $1,200 (airfare, hotel stay and fee because on that day the hair stylist's only customer is Mr. Edwards). Per Men's Vogue, John Edwards buys IMPORTED suits. BC, we're not talking about the "imported" suits one can get at Penney's or Sears or even Lord & Taylor. And if someone is vain enough to pay over a thousand dollars on his hair vain enough to spend more than 10 minutes fondling his hair and touching up his make-up before a TV appearance (and this after the make-up people did their thing) then he's going to be vain enough to buy expensive, nice suits. JOhn Edwards likes to look good and he's got the money to do it.
BC, the cheapest suit at Brooks Brothers, an upper middle line of suits, is $600 and I'm not talking about the summer suits either. Many Brooks Brothers suits are $800 and up, and into the thousands. Having worked part-time at Brooks Brothers, I can tell you that lawyers, investment brokers, business executives, who are nowhere near as rich as Mr. Edwards do not think twice about dropping several thousand of dollars at a store like Brooks Brothers. I should know, I had many repeat clients.
So, you continue with your suit fixation, weirdo, but I am done with it. No one else wants to keep reading about it over and over and over and several folks have said so in these Swamps.
So, BC, get your head out of your ass and enter the real world, OK?
Posted by: John D | September 22, 2007 11:30 PM
Why give a family of four making $62,000 a year a $6000 tax break? It's not like the family needs the money or would spend it back into the economy. Much better to enrich Bush's private contracting buddies overseas in Iraq.
Posted by: Lou kaye | September 22, 2007 11:56 PM
BC:
Why do you keep bringing up this dispute over the cost of Edwards' suits? Nobody cares. At any cost, his suits are too expensive to simply leave as empty as they are.
Posted by: John W. | September 23, 2007 1:53 AM
John D, don't let the common sense get in the way of your idiot ramblings. This is the max for a family of four. Try and raise a family of four based on today's cost of living and still have enough to pay for insurance coverage for this size family.
You back a man asking for billions to promote a war killing thousands and seriously injuring thousands more and yet cannot help family's that are having problems providing insurance for their children.
You and bush make good bed fellows.
Posted by: ken | September 23, 2007 8:50 AM
President Bush veto the Democrat Hillary Socialist Health Care and save us tax money. The liberals are on steroids why don't they give us all new cars instead of health care. As FDR said a chicken in every pot a car in every garage. Jerry White, Springfield, IL
Posted by: Jerry White | September 23, 2007 10:34 AM
[quote]
Why do you keep bringing up this dispute over the cost of Edwards' suits? Nobody cares.
Posted by: John W. | September 23, 2007 1:53 AM
[/quote]
Sorry, John W - I CARE! I care when someone posts the statement that "Edwards pays as much for his suits as Bush does", in effect saying that they know this for a FACT, yet weeks later STILL refuses to provide PROOF that this statement is true. It just makes you wonder how many other things John D has posted as "fact" that he can't or won't provide evidence that they are true statements.
John D has continually reminded everyone here that he used to be a journalist in a former career. Do you honestly think someone who was a journalist, a career that demands research and fact-checking before anything they write gets printed, would state an OPINION as if it were fact and then AVOID backing up their words ever since?
All he ever had to do was to declare said "fact" his OPINION, and admit that he really doesn't know the true costs of Edwards' suits, to end the discussion. He has not done this; in fact, he has REFUSED to do this. Why? Why does he refuse to admit that he posted an OPINION and that it was wrong from him to state it as if it were a fact?
It's called acting mature and admitting your mistakes - something neither Bush or John D, "the Joseph Stalin of Streamwood" will ever do.
Posted by: BC | September 23, 2007 5:30 PM
Yo BC, I STILL AM A JOURNALIST, editor of a publication, paid fairly well too and have been for 20+ years now. What do you do in life other than scour the Swamp day in and day out and obsess over John Edwards' suits?
I provided you a link to a Men's Vogue feature on John Edwards. In that feature, the author spoke of John Edwards importing his suits. Sorry, that does not mean made in China crap at Sears. Edwards drink wine when watching NCAA basketball. He REGULARLY pays $400 for a haircut and even flies his hair stylist cross country.
Men's fashion publications and websites do not write about someone and their clothes unless they have the goods and wear the good stuff:
http://www.mensflair.com/celebrity-styles/john-edwards-fashion.php
This piece is biased, but it also provides some info about the house and the expensive touches in it:
http://jezebel.com/gossip/department-of-anna-wintour-sucks/his-n-hers-john--elizabeth-edwards-profiles-not-created-equal-271758.php
http://www.mensvogue.com/business/politics/feature/articles/2007/06/john_edwards?currentPage=7
Posted by: John D | September 23, 2007 11:57 PM