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SCHIP passes the House
Posted by: mcq on Thursday, August 02, 2007

The Democrat attempt to pass health care legislation which expands the government's role in its subsidization has passed its first hurdle, the vote in the House. The SCHIP program (State Children's Health Insurance Program) passed 225 to 204:

Originally:

SCHIP was intended to provide federal subsidies to insure children up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or a family income of about $40,000 a year.

That was its intended use. And that $40,000 a year income was for a family of 4. The new SCHIP program will expand that to up to 400% of the poverty level in some areas.

Secondly, "child" in some areas and in some circumstances, will be defined as anyone up to 25.

Lastly, there is no requirement for those receiving it to be citizens or show any proof of citizenship.

And paying for the unwarranted expansion of this program?

To pay for the SCHIP expansion, Democrats are proposing to raise tobacco taxes by up to 61 cents a pack.

Tobacco taxes are highly regressive. So, basically, Democrats are proposing to tax the poor to pay for the health care of the middle class.

Tobacco taxes are also highly uncertain. Health-care advocates like them because the evidence is that they do reduce consumption. However, states and the federal government have already loaded up various programs, many involving health care and children, on their backs. The odds are very strong that tobacco taxes will not produce the revenues being obligated.

There are no "odds" to it. Various studies have concluded that it will require 9 million new smokers to fund its expansion. Sounds like a heck of a "health care" bill doesn't it? What can we expect - a new ad campaign sponsored by the Democrats encouraging people to light up "for the children?"

I'm not sure how to say "this is a bad piece of legislation" except to say, this is a bad piece of legislation. A Bush veto is promised and hopefully, after the Senate passes this mess, it will be executed.

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"A Bush veto is promised and hopefully, after the Senate passes this mess, it will be executed."

Ahh...the smell of gridlock. Did we just timewarp back a decade?

Written By: D
URL: http://

I’ve said this many times on various topics, but I’ll repeat it here: There is something fundamentally dishonest about arguing that that some new government program is necessary or beneficial for our entire society, and then putting the entire funding load on some narrow, unpopular demographic like smokers.

If Democrats want to make the case that our society needs this they ought to be forced to sell society in general on the need to pay for it, rather than let the rest of us vote ourselves new goodies at someone else’s expense.

Written By: Aldo
URL: http://

From the Burlington Free Press this morning:
Vermont hospitals asking for 10 percent rate increase
"About 7 percent of the rate increase would cover increased costs. Davis said that if the Medicaid and Medicare programs paid hospital rates, the proposed increase would be 4.9 percent. Because the federal programs underpay hospitals, the costs have to be shifted to other payers, hospital officials say. The cost shift is "20 percent of expense in the system that is not funded by either Medicare, Medicaid or people who don’t have resources to pay,"

It often said by supporters of public schools that vouchers and the No Child Left Behind policies are an attempt to break our public school system.

It sure feels as if there is continued pressure to break the privately insured.

Written By: lola
URL: http://

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