I don't understand how these actions can be perceived in a positive light. The government throws trillions at the military-industrial complex to waste/lose in Iraq but the President bristles at the thought of providing health insurance to children. Mystifying.
More here.
Quote:
| More SCHIP: Revived but already dead Friday, September 21, 2007, 05:28 PM The Atlanta Journal-Constitution The Good News: House and Senate negotiators struck a deal on PeachCare’s parent program Friday that would expand the program by $35 billion. The Bad News: President Bush already announced he’d veto it. The final agreement, which still must pass the House and Senate, would insure the 6.6 million low-income children already enrolled in the program, known nationally as the States Children’s Health Insurance Program or SCHIP and locally as PeachCare. It also would as many as 4 million more kids by 2012. The legislation would repeal President Bush’s order to the states forbidding them from expanding local SCHIP initiatives on their own. The compromise bill encourages states to enroll children of parents who earn 200 percent of the federal poverty rate ($41,000 for family of four), but allows an expansion up to 300 percent ($62,000). The only adults allowed to get coverage through SCHIP are pregnant women. Parents and childless adults, now covered by some states, would be phased out of the program. Bush has vowed to veto any SCHIP bill that greatly expands funding, saying it was a move toward socialized medicine. Bush said the program should continue to focus on children only, with eligibility capped at 200 percent, as the program was originally designed 10 years ago. Some states are now as high as 350 percent. Still, the Democratic Congress continues pushing a bill Bush is sure to veto, believing that Democrats would still win a political points by portraying Republicans as virtually heartless in the 2008 election. |
