The
Senate Finance Committee, in an unusual display of unity across party lines,
overwhelmingly approved legislation yesterday to provide health care to 4
million American children who would otherwise be left without it.
In
response, President George Bush declared he would veto the bill.
The
President's threat has even startled Republican Senate leaders Chuck Grassley
and Orrin Hatch who earlier called it, "disappointing, even a little
unbelievable." (7/12/07)
Unfortunately,
the other group who stands to be disappointed by this Presidential threat is
the 4 million American children whose healthy development depend on the regular
check-ups and care the President's veto will deny them.
The
bill approved today by the Senate Committee provides $35 billion in new money
for children's health. This falls short of the amount promised in the
Congressional budget and still leaves way too many children without coverage.
Still,
for the mothers and fathers of 4 million American children this bill quite
literally represents the answer to their prayers.
That's
why the full Senate must pass the Committee's proposal.
And
there's reason for optimism that the House of Representatives will improve on
the children's health bill when they take up the issue in the next week or so.
Please call 1-800-828-0498 or email your Senators and House Representative and urge them to oppose the President and pass a children's health bill that protects the health of America's children.
And for those people who support publicly-funded health care coverage programs like S-CHIP or Medicare, Bush's explanation for why he wants to kill the children's insurance program might prove interesting.
"My concern," Bush was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, "is that when you expand eligibility ... you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government."
Bush insists that private insurance is better and provides the best medical care available; public programs are inefficient and provide questionable care at best.
So why would people want to leave private insurance? If private insurance is so great, why would working families be lured by something so obviously inferior? Shouldn't people be so "dependent" on such a perfect private system that they never want to leave it?
It is possible that Bush and his advisers believe working families are stupid or don't care for their children as much as well-off families do.
But if Bush doesn't think this, then his comment suggests some other deep-rooted fear. He is worried that an effective and popular program like S-CHIP might actually be better than private insurance, and he needs to nip it in the bud before it becomes universal.
Indeed, his real problem is that S-CHIP provides working families with a means to afford coverage that doesn't allow private insurance companies to raise premiums arbitrarily or to exclude those people who need coverage the most: the sick.
Author: Escape from the Pharma Cartel - due soon on a bookshelf near you - health care from the inside!
