It’s time to get the “politics” out of health coverage for the poor and uninsured. According to The Washington Post (07-19-07), a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by seven billion dollars a year for five years got a thumbs down from President Bush on July 18, 2007.
Right now the 10-year old program is costing the federal governent $5 billion a year. But the president says the 6.6 million kids whose families can’t afford private insurance don’t need that much of a boost. The president proposes, instead, boosting the program only $1 billion a year for the next five years. Why so little? The president says he doesn’t want an additional 3.3 million children added to the program which the additional funds would cover… for one important reason: the insurance industry would suffer.
Specifically, the president told The Washington Post this - “My concern is that when you expand eligbility… you’re really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government.”
Now that’s an old and familiar argument often served up by economists who argue that freeloaders will come out of the woodwork. This woodwork theory is an effectively protective device for maintaining the status quo. And that is, after all, the conservative way of life, isn’t it? Conservatives want to conserve or keep things as they are. BUT… should the children suffer?
The president is quoted as saying he is not going to “surrender a good and important idea before the debate really gets started.” Yet, the paradox is that expanded funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program is supported by both Republicans and Democrats, at the same time that the leader of the Republican Party does not.
So when President Bush says no deal on a health plan for poorer kids because of what he calls “philosophical” differences… he is clearly putting politics before the health needs of children. He is, in effect, saying let the marketplace solve the problem. That means the president favors subsidizing private insurance companies which are then expected to subsidize health coverage for poor kids.
In other words… a conservative philosophy endorses the idea that the role of government should be minimize; marketplace solutions are the ideal…. even for health care. Sounds like the same philosophical argument for not embracing a national health care system. It’s time to forget the past! The real debate in the 21st century is not likely to begin until citizens arm themselves with knowledge and begin to understand the economic politics driving the health care debate.
Bottom line… What is in the best or common interest of the general public? Health care for all, health care only for those who can purchase it from private insurance companies or be subsidized with the purchase of policies at lower rates?
We should not accept at face value the president’s contention that expanding health coverage for poor kids will pave the way for “people to switch from private insurance.” An informed citizentry needs to ask the following questions: Under what conditions will that happen? What would prompt people who already can’t afford private insurance for their children to switch from the private insurance they already don’t have?
The president’s threat to veto compromised funding bills in the senate and house before the congressional recess in August… deserves a national debate.
Now is the time to speak out and remind legislators and the president of the public interest in the health care needs of non-insured children.
July 19th, 2007 at 10:55 pm e
Absolutely right. How can you veto health care in any form for poor kids? What kind of philosophy would support neglecting the poorest in our society? Thinking that people would move from a so-called “consumer-based” insurance system to government sponsored ones when you can’t even afford basic health care is, read my lips, STUPID!!!