Republicans don't give a CHIP about children's health care

The BBQ Pit
1

CHIP’s authorization expired on September 30 when the GOP Congress, occupied by yet one more attempt to repeal Obamacare, didn’t get around to reauthorizing the program for another five years.

The GOP apparently needs to find $8 billion in offsetting cuts to pay for the program. Meanwhile, they’re pushing for a $1.5 trillion tax cut that would almost entirely go to the richest 1%, and they’re not going to feel the need to pay for more than the tiniest fraction of it. (ETA: They couldn’t pay for CHIP by settling for a $1.492 trillion tax cut?!)

Several states will run out of money to pay for CHIP over the next few months. The Republicans care about their tax cut.

The Party of Evil at work.

2

This is foolishness, the typical liberal idiocy at work. “Who cares about the money? We have A Cause! If you oppose my Cause, you are Evil!”

The business of government involves allocating dollars for a kajillion worthy causes. You think that dollars just magically appear, and if they don’t, well, just tax the rich some more.

Idiot.

3

Did you even read the OP? The money is already there, moron. It’s being given as a tax cut, instead of helping the children.

And of course we put the cause above money. If your Christianity was real, you’d do the same thing. But you’d rather worship Mammon instead of God.

I mean, Jesus said that if you harmed a little one, you’d be better to have a millstone tied around your neck and thrown into the sea. But you’d rather have your tax cut then help children.

**You are ridiculing liberals for acting more Christian than you. **

And I invite people to quote this so Bricker can see it. This is what bothers me about him so much. He claims to be Christian, but subsumes Christian values to Republican doctrine.

4

The dollars don’t have to appear, magically or otherwise. Just add it to the deficit. If providing heath care to children who did not have the good fortune to be born to parents of wealth is not a proper function of government, then we don’t have the right government.

5

Interesting approach in response to an action which boils down to “Who cares about your cause? We have the money!”

One of the functions of government is to provide services that are not economically viable in the free market but provide a significant social benefit. What those services ought to be are not agreed upon by everyone, hence the process of passing legislation, but your immediate strawmanning the program referred to in the OP as some trivial, unconsidered feelgood project rather than an element of the social safety net designed to assist some of the most vulnerable members of society says quite a lot about you, Bricker.

And evil is as evil does. One of the consequences of what the Republicans have done (or rather not done) is that more children will die due to lack of access to healthcare, and there was not the slightest attempt on the GOP’s part to even consider ways of mitigating that consequence. I know it’s SOP for right-wingers to accuse liberals of calling anyone they don’t like “racist” or “Nazis” or “evil” - after all, it’s also right-wing SOP to both immediately respond to any criticism with slanderous lies (see post #2 above)and to project their worst qualities onto their opponents - but sometimes racists are actually racist, sometimes Nazis are actually Nazis, and sometimes evil is actually evil.

I see you’ve been taking mindreading lessons from adaher. I hope you can still get your money back.

If liberals “think that dollars just magically appear”, why is it that all the recent Republican administrations were the ones running up the deficits with abandon?

More right-wing projection.

6

S.1827 was introduced 12 days before the expiration of CHIP. It was sponsored by Orrin Hatch (R) and 5 Democrats. Excluding Senator Hatch it currently has 20 sponsors, 5 of which are Republicans.

I honestly have no idea how a party in control of Congress and the White House is capable of letting such a low cost,shared funding program, lapse. The scramble to bridge the gap shows how amateurish the GOP appears to be.

7

**Matthew 25: **

35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
** Ezekiel 16:49-50**:

49 “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen."

8

Matthew 18:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

6 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

9

You are one cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch. So much for your alleged Catholicism.

10

It is mind-boggling to me that someone might in seriousness advance an argument stating that the richest nation on earth might not be able to afford the provision of healthcare for kids in poverty.

11

This seems overly harsh, man. What’s with you lately?

12

Bricker’s response was a no bueno knee-jerk reaction, but your counter-argument is to ***advocate for a theocracy? ***Besides, the Bible Passages are easily interpreted as personal responsibility, not a call for government action.

Anyway, I agree with the OP, but to be more general: The GOP simply does not know how to govern, at least at the federal level. They have shown this over and over an over again.

13

He’s letting his inner secular asshole out.

14

You *really *need to read and think before posting. Others in this thread get it; why don’t you? Are you really happy just to look for superficial, sophomoric, and, more to the point, irrelevant gotchas so you can think of yourself as thoughtful? You’re the only one who does. Here’s a hint: The targeted readership was not you. Do try not being supercilious sometime, will you?

The government is the mechanism we use. Is that something else that has eluded what passes for your education?

15

No one’s calling for a theocracy, but it’s telling when “heathen” lefties are following the Bible’s call to help others better than so-called Christians. And if everyone felt it was their personal responsibility to care for the least among us-- whether they’re a Senator, mechanic, school teacher or president of the United States-- we’d be in a lot better place than we are now where assholes like Bricker feel a duty to money before humans.

16

And it has never occurred to you that CHIP should not exist in the first place? There is no constitutional authorization for government welfare or insurance.

Programs like this belong at the state level if they belong anywhere at all.

17

There is no constitutional authorization for meat inspectors either, but a lot of us think that not eating contaminated meat is worth having the government do it. If I saw you drowning, I would have no constitutional duty to pull you out of the water, but I’d be an ass if I didn’t. We have children who through no fault of their own would not have healthcare without the government stepping in. And I refuse to condemn a child to death just because he lives in a state that either cannot or will not step up and help.

18

The missing section of the Sermon on the Mount:

And Jesus said unto the multitude: Blessed are they who tax their fellow citizens to pay for government programs in order to do what I fucking told you folks to do on your own, GOD DAMN IT!!!

19

There is a school of Christianity that says it’s wrong for the Big Bad Government to help people, because the whole point is to motivate good Christians to be generous to the needy, that the important thing isn’t that the needy have their needs met, but that Christians have an opportunity to do the right thing in response to need.

Bricker has voiced his concurrence with this notion on this board.

Oh, and those who buy into this notion usually add a hefty dose of ‘taxation is theft,’ even though Paul gives his blessing to taxation (Romans 13:6-7). (Incidentally, that’s from the very same passage that (when a Republican is President) the evangelical wingnuts always quote about submission to the earthly authorities.)

It seems pretty obvious to me that meeting the needs and suffering of needy people are what matters, and if that can be done by reasonable means that don’t involve Christian charity, that’s fine. Christian charity has never, ever managed to feed more than a fraction of the hungry or care for more than a fraction of the sick.

If I believe that morally, it’s way less about me, the giver, than about the needy recipient, then I should rejoice that government is stepping in and taking care of things. There will always be more needs that my charity can take care of that government hasn’t yet met; there will always be a call on my Christian generosity.

That supposed Christians are standing in the way of renewing a program to take care of sick kids that we’ve been easily able to afford for the past 20 years…well, that’s why I use the descriptor ‘supposed.’ And that’s why Christianity in the U.S. has an increasingly terrible reputation.

Jesus didn’t spend much time condemning adultery or sexual licentiousness, but he repeatedly condemned hardness of heart. And that’s practically the defining characteristic of conservative ‘Christianity.’

20

Well, it IS missing. It’s something that Jesus didn’t say. So what are we to make of that?