No. Scrutinize the qualifications and leave 12-year-old kids out of it.
And here it is, the big lie. I was waiting for it. Bush does not want to cut SCHIP, in fact he has proposed continuing to funding it with inflationary increases each year. But since being honest and saying “Well, here’'s a program that helped people like the Frosts, and George W. Bush wants to continue funding it for people like the Frosts” wouldn’t raise outrage with the base, so the Dems are trying to sell “OMG! BUSH HATES TEH CHILDREN!” instead. Bush vetoed a large increase to the SCHIP program which would have expanded it from a program designed to help the needy to one that would have been nothing more than another bloated entitlement program for middle and upper middle class families, people who should in no way be receiving charity from the government.
And I bet they didn’t have four kids, either.
Sadly, No! nails the dismount.
This is what is wrong with the expansion of SCHIP. It is a noble thing indeed to help the children of poor families. My son is on SCHIP, and it is a good program. But what is being proposed is an expansion of the financial qualifications for inclusion, which naturally lends itself to abuses. Do you want to help poor kids, or do you want to allow for the possibility that by subsidizing some people’s kids you’re actually subsidizing some guy’s car payments on his Lexus? As it is, right now in Pennsylvania a family of three qualifies at $33,200, with an upper subsidized limit of $39,010 (cite) That said, what do you propose the upper limit should be? $50,000? $60,000? And who is going to pay for it, exactly?
This looks like it has an eye on universal healthcare. If universal healthcare is the aim, at least be honest about it rather than trying to backdoor it on the backs of children. Can’t we be upfront about things for a change? I’d support universal healthcare given a few provisions (such as potentially repudiating Social Security to pay for it), but I won’t support de facto sneaking past the gate legislation.
They TRIED to get insurance. They were rejected by three different companies for pre-existing conditions.
The house was bought for $55,000 when the neighborhood was less safe than it currently is. Even now, it’s only worth around $250,000, which isn’t exactly high-end in today’s market.
The boy has a SCHOLARSHIP to that expensive private school, and the girl’s school is well-known for being very liberal about financial aid.
(Now former) Republican John Cole of Balloon Juice has an article right now that goes over all of this:
Well, the question, in many cases like those of the Frosts, is whether you want to spend SOME money on the working poor and the lower middle class NOW, or whether you’d prefer them to bankrupt themselves paying medical bills and THEN end up spending MORE money on them when they’re so far in the hole that they’ll never climb out.
There are plenty of people in this country who appear to be getting by OK, and who actually ARE getting by OK, as long as they can continue to juggle all their payments and not get hit with a large unexpected whack in the wallet. And not all of these people are simply gamblers who decide to live without health insurance because they expect to have everything paid for. As has already been pointed out, this family was rejected by three different health insurance companies due to pre-existing conditions. While it might make good financial sense for an insurance company to refuse such folks, the standards by which we define appropriate health care should be a little more forgiving.
Given that this discussion is about the economics of medical care, it’s interesting that none of the morons screaming about “bloated entitlement programs” and making “payments on the Lexus” can even grasp the concept of prophylaxis. Even conservatives, in making their arguments, point out that there are programs in place to hep the destitute. Well, isn’t it possible that we might end up with a better society, and perhaps even save some money in the long run, if we give people some help BEFORE they go all the way down the drain. I’d prefer that the government help a family like the Frosts now, rather than AFTER they’ve lost their house and business to a massive health care bill. Because if that happens, they’ll probably be on “bloated entitlement programs” for the rest of their lives. Helping them now allows them to remain more self-sufficient in the long run.
Cutting off your nose just to spite your face never struck me as a very productive worldview.
I know what you’re saying. I simply disagree over the details.
Thanks for the name calling, by the way. You’re 100% class.
yea, I noticed that. You’re deserving, others are not.
Well, if anyone who characterizes the recipients of these programs with rhetoric like “making payments on his Lexus” implies that it’s ME who lacks class, i’ll take that as a compliment.
Were that I said that.
Ah, never mind. It’s not worth the effort to clarify something that requires no clarification.
Ummm…You did happen to notice that the Frosts DID qualify for the MCHIP plan, they DID utilize the plan and it DID pay for their children’s medical costs, didn’t you? So…what’s you point again?
Sorry, but the very use of the term, even if you’re just holding out the possibility of what might happen, poisons the well of discussion about this issue. It’s such an stupid and hackneyed cliche that thinking people should eschew it altogether, and that people who use it mark themselves as not being thinking people.
Why not just talk, as you were originally doing, about the problem of defining where the line between some help and no help should be drawn, rather than implying that the whole thing is inevitably going to descend into some sort of car payment program for wealthy liberals? I know it’s hard to give up some of these idiotic catchphrases, but i’m holding out hope for you.
A 12 year old testifies in support of a government program, and has made himself “part of the public debate” and “fair game.” His home address is publicly posted. They sic private detectives on his family to try to prove they weren’t really eligable. This, of course, is perfectly ok.
Contrast this with how shocked and outraged everyone was when General Petreus, a grown man who has quite clear ties with the White House PR campaign, is called a mean name by MoveOn.Org. We had to have a bipartisan resolution condemning that. But no outrage from the Republican side of the aisle over smearing a 12 year old for HIS testimony. That’s the political climate we live in. Sometimes I wish we had a barfing face smiley.
I don’t think that by pointing out that expanding SCHIP to cover people who could use the money saved to their own ends is poisoning the well. I think SCHIP should be reserved for those who actually need it, rather than those who see the opportunity to save some money. I think it’s a legitimate concern. I’m not real keen on the concept of fairness as posited by the political process nowadays, but even so this is not an unreasonable objection.
Where did I say anything about liberals, or even conservatives for that matter? I speak my own mind, I draw my own conclusions, and while you are free to disagree with my thoughts I do resent the implication that I draw my talking points from the barking head brigade. I wouldn’t trust most of them to lead a child to the toilet. If they had any capabilities whatsoever, they would be making policy instead of engaging in personal attacks on people they don’t even care about in the pursuit of ratings.
I never said it was. In fact, if you’ll look at my posts in this thread, it’s exactly the issue i’ve been trying to deal with.
But if you don’t see the rhetorical difference between expressing concern that the money “should be reserved for those who actually need it, rather than those who see the opportunity to save some money,” and complaining that people might use it for “making payments on [the] Lexus,” then i probably can’t elucidate it for you.
Yes, i did notice that. My point was that it’s a good example of the good that a program like SCHIP can do, and i’ve seen nothing that convinces me that the expanded program under consideration wouldn’t do similar amounts of good, despite the bleating of some people about the perils of imminent socialism.
What about lying about it? Or at least knowingly leaving out highly material facts? Is that fair game?
Well, “good” is a pretty subjective term, I think what we’re talking about is more along the lines of government’s proper role. If the MCHIP program was expanded to include higher income middle class families, I personally would likely qualify (or at least my kids would). Undoubtedly, if that happened and I enrolled in the program, and, God forbid, one of my kids became ill or injured, the MCHIP insurance would do a lot of “good” in paying for his treatment. Right now, however, my kids are covered by the health insurance that I pay for, and if one of them happened to become ill or injured, it would do a lot of “good” in paying for his treatment. The only real difference here is who pays for it. Currently, I am paying for my insurance, which is right and just as I can afford it. Expand the program and you (collective you) would be paying for it, and I’d have an extra $5K in my pocket each year to pay for vacations or cars or jewelery or whatever. Why the hell should other people pay for something that I am quite capable of paying for myself? Justify that for me if you please.
Wow, I agree with Bush on something other than immigration.
Can I point out that we’re talking about kids here? When it comes to health insurance, kids lack agency.
If we raise the eligibility maxima for SCHIP:
[ul]
[li]Some kids would now be insured whose parents couldn’t have otherwise afforded insurance.[/li][li]Some kids would now be insured whose parents could have afforded insurance, but didn’t realize it because their search for private insurance didn’t lead them to an existing affordable solution.[/li][li]Some kids would now be insured because their parents could have afforded insurance, but (a la Michelle Malkin) came to the conclusion that the insurance they could afford would cover so little that they might as well do without.[/li][li]Some kids would now be insured whose parents could have afforded insurance, but simply decided not to buy it, out of hardheartedness, miserliness, stupidity, or whatever.[/li][li]Some kids would be covered by SCHIP whose parents were already buying private insurance. In some cases, that might be a fairly minor budget item for the parents, and in others it might be barely tenable. In these cases, the government would be paying to meet an already-met need, as the downside of meeting the unmet needs in the other bullets.[/li][/ul]
There’s an argument for making adults take care of their own health insurance needs. I happen to disagree with it, for reasons that are a whole separate debate. But I’m not sure which of the circumstances justifies leaving the kids unprotected, when they are in no position to protect themselves.