He surprises you.
Vetoing a program designed to use a tax on cigarettes to provide health care for poor children? With reasoning that prioritizes the needs of huge health care companies over helping sick children?
Does he remotely think that ANYONE is going to be fooled into thinking that his motivations come from anything other than protecting big business interests over the interests of the most helpless sections of the population?
Yes…it’s a new low. And if Congress can’t override this veto, they’re fricking useless.
PAD
• 
But he’s taking a stand on principle! Doesn’t matter what his principles are, if he’s a principled man, he’s okay! Because he has principles!
This and other fallacies, news at five.
Bush will continue to hit new lows as long as Congress bends over.
Pure politics on both sides of the aisle, unfortunately. The Republicans want to control the growth into the middle income groups, but are willing to cut off the poor kids to force it. The Democrats wanted to force them to vote it down/veto it so they can say “Look at the evil, heartless Republicans”, rather than compromise and put forth a version that deals just with the low income families.
Neither side is looking good to me at the moment. This should be an easy bill to pass.
Pure politics on both sides of the aisle, unfortunately. The Republicans want to control the growth into the middle income groups, but are willing to cut off the poor kids to force it. The Democrats wanted to force them to vote it down/veto it so they can say “Look at the evil, heartless Republicans”, rather than compromise and put forth a version that deals just with the low income families.
Neither side is looking good to me at the moment. This should be an easy bill to pass.
Darwin never applied his principles to Congress. Considering Congress has the shape-shifting ability of an amoeba, sadly, it’s not likely they’ll grow a spine any time soon.
The fact that the (current) schip program might be suspended because of this is ridiculous. That said the democrats are nowhere near innocent on this one. They waited until the program was days away from expiring to present anything to the president. The president asked (on a nationally televised press conference) for a clean extension of the current program, and offered a compromise version with a $5 billion dollar increase. They passed a version that has a $35 billion dollar increase (some accounts say $60 billion over 5 years), and with redefinitions of “child” and “poor”. Child is now anyone 25 and under, and poor is $82,600 a year and under. Does that seem resonable?
This whole thing is just silly and would have been avoided if a straight reauthorization of the current program was passed.
John said what I was going to say.
When did 82k a year become poor? When did a 25yo become a child? Politics from one side and the other.
Makes a good soundbite to say that Bush vetoed the Chips program, but the facts say a little different.
I concur with Jeff. When you read what Peter posted you want to say, “Bad Bad Bushie”. But if you step back and look at it, its just an expansion of publicly paid health care into an income bracket where you really have to ask if they need it or want it.
Flat 82k/year definition? Somehow I doubt that. Have you read this in the text of the bill, or in a summary of the bill by a newspaper columnist/blogger? I don’t have time now or I’d go searching for it.
The current definitions are something like 10k without children, and increasing a particular amount for every child the family has. Increasing each number makes sense to me, because it’s probably time to increase them. Changing it to a flat rate for everyone regardless of the number of children doesn’t make sense to me.
82k sounds high…but what if the family has 10 children?
And I also somehow doubt that all 25 yos get defined as a child. I suspect only those who are ‘dependents’ are. You know, those who are living at home with parents and not filing their own tax return.
So the people complaining all over the web about the 25 yo earning 82k himself/herself and being called a poor child is ridiculous. They wouldn’t be considered a dependent of their parents.
There’s a current limit on age now. I don’t know what it is. 21? 23? Raising it to 25 with the average age at marriage going up as it is doesn’t sound out of line to me.
Now…if the text of the bill actually does say that all 25 yos are considered children, whether or not they are dependents. And if combined with this it really does say anyone making 82k a year is poor, regardless of the number of children. If both of these things are true…then I will agree that the Congressional Democrats are smoking weed.
But I am willing to lay a large amount of money down on the table and bet that it ISN’T true. And that those who are saying it is are either grossly misinformed, or lying.
Off to search for the text as I have a couple minutes now.
John,
Your point about the $82,600 sounding high made me go and look into it. First as to where I heard $82,600 from it was the president, but I should have looked more into it anyway.
Here is how it stands right now; the bill makes anyone at 300% of the poverty level (or lower)eligible. That would currently be $60,000 for a family of four, however New York state asked that number to be moveb to 400%, ($82,600) and all that needs for that to happen under the bill is for the department of health and human services to say ok, not a new bill, so the $82,600 is a little suspect, but not if the democrats take the white house and thus take over HHS.
Now that $60,000 a year for a family of four is, in my opinion both high and low. How can that be you might ask? Well, the bill and most bills for that matter do not take into account geographical factors. $60,000 a year in NYC is far less then $60,000 a year in rural Alabama.
As for the hypothetical family of 10 children you mention, I would be torn on that. I wouldn’t want the children to suffer for acts of the parents. On the other hand who in their right mind has 10 kids if they can’t support them?
Well, as usual, this is just more of Bush lying. Yeah, I said it. And I’m not alone. He’s ticked off his fellow Republicans so much that the Democrats didn’t even have to reply to his “explanation” that included the $83,000 figure.
But supporters of the bill immediately seized on that claim and said it was not true. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a loyal supporter of the Bush White House, responded angrily to the president during a Capitol Hill news conference.
“Are families of four making $83,000 going to get benefit(s) under this? Not unless the administration agrees to it. This bill does not call for that high level of expenditure,” Hatch said.
Hatch explained that the only way such families would get SCHIP coverage would be if their states petitioned the administration for a waiver — just like under the current program. When New York, made such a petition, the Bush administration turned it down.
The new law would be the same, Hatch said, and even if the White House were willing to grant waivers, such families would make up just a tiny percentage of those eligible.
“To call this a step toward one-size-fits-all, government-mandated health care is just political in my view,” he said. “This is a block grant. States have tremendous power over this bill — not total power, but power.”
Hatch said he found the veto difficult to understand, and senior Republican Sen. Charles Grassley said the same thing.
“Every effort was made to bring the administration into the process, but it decided to veto the bill, I think, before it was even written. From their position, it was either my way or the highway. Well, that’s not how the legislative process works,” the Iowa senator said.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14980830
What? You don’t like the liberal NPR? How about the McClatchy news service?
President Bush claims that the bipartisan bill to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program “would result in taking a program meant to help poor children and turning it into one that covers children in households with incomes up to $83,000 a year.”
That’s not true.
The bill maintains current law. It limits the program to children from families with incomes up to twice the federal poverty level — now $20,650 for a family of four, for a program limit of $41,300 — or to 50 percentage points above a state’s Medicaid eligibility threshold, which varies state to state.
States that want to increase eligibility beyond those limits would require approval from Bush’s Health and Human Services Department, just as they must win waivers now. The HHS recently denied a request by New York to increase its income threshold to four times the poverty level — the $82,600 figure that Republican opponents of the bill are using.
Under current law, nineteen states have won waivers from these income limits. The biggest was granted to New Jersey, which upped its income limit to 350 percent of the federal poverty level, or $72,275 for a family of four in 2007. The expanded SCHIP program retains the waiver option under federal discretion; it doesn’t change it.
The president also claims that the proposal would cause some families to drop private coverage and enroll their children in the cheaper SCHIP program.
That’s true.
Peter Orszag, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, said that was inevitable to some degree when any government program expanded. The CBO estimates that the legislation would attract 5.8 million new enrollees by 2012. Of them, 3.8 million would be uninsured and eligible under current requirements, and 2 million probably would have had private coverage before the expansion.
That’s a rate of about 1 in 3 new enrollees dropping private insurance. “We don’t see very many other policy options that would reduce the number of uninsured children by the same amount without creating more” dropouts from private insurance, Orszag said.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/20169.html
What do you know, he was actually right about one thing.
Take the time and do some reading instead of just listening to the President’s sound bites. At least, that’s what I learned before the Iraq War started.
the 82K is a fallacy kids. It was something that was suggested ONCE by the governor of New York having to do with the poverty line in Manhattan. The Feds (and the bill) have already said no to this. HOWEVER since it has been said then it will be used to prove how useless the program is.
25 is the age at which most adults come off their parents health insurance even in they are in school at the time. That is were that number got plucked out of the air. Again nothing to do with the actual bill’s wording but something someone MIGHT try in the future.
This bill provided money for children for preventative health care. Things that could be done at a much lower rate to the tax payer than all the emergency room visits that the tax payers will now be paying for. Controlling some poor kid’s asthma by doctor’s visits and some medications is a hella of a lot cheaper than taking the kid to the emergency room because the kid can’t breath and there is no insurance but the emergency room has GOT to take them under the law.
Here’s the actual text of the bill for those who wish to peruse.
To me it seems it says that states that propose to provide funds to families higher than 300% of the poverty line will get limited federal matching funds. Suggesting that there is some flexibility by state on how high to go. But 300% is specifically mentioned in the text of the bill. But poverty is not being redefined. So those who are saying that it says 82k is poor, aren’t semantically correct. It’s 300% of poor.
I couldn’t find any reference to age, but there’s a lot of text to read, so I read just the summary.
“(Sec. 110) Places a limitation on the matching rate for states that propose to cover children with effective family income exceeding 300% of the federal poverty line.”
This is in the Summary of the bill at the link above, but when you go to the full text of the final bill, Section 110 is missing. Goes straight from 109 to 111. So it wasn’t in the final bill.
As for the hypothetical family of 10 children you mention, I would be torn on that. I wouldn’t want the children to suffer for acts of the parents. On the other hand who in their right mind has 10 kids if they can’t support them?
1) People who aren’t in ‘their right minds’ or those who are of below average intelligence.
2) People who don’t believe in, or know about using effective birth control. (The latter not necessarily being synonymous with #1)
Maybe raising the income qualification was the only way to get any republican support, so the bill wouldn’t be seen as a giveaway to minorities.
Why would they want to increase taxes on cigs? It would get to a point where smokers can’t afford to pay for their habit and then you lost all the money you were getting from them to begin with.
This bill requires states to have an approved program, and based on that program, they get variable Federal assistance. The changes being made don’t raise the bar, but it does make provisions for the states to do so. If they do, there’s an eventual cap as to the amount of Matching Federal share they can get. I gather that it’s also up to the states to define what constitutes a “child.” It’s been a while since I turned 18, but I know I could not afford health insurance on my own until I got my first real professional job at the age of 26. Until then, I had very, very basic coverage. Thankfully, I didn’t need medical assistance. I don’t know what I’d have done if I had.
As for whether $82K is “poor” or not, that’s not the point of this bill. It’s not help the poor…that’s what Medicaid is for. This program is to cover those that make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but might not be able to afford good private health insurance. My family has a single income…mine…at just over $90K gross. We have a small 2 BR condo, a new van to cart the kids around in, and I drive a 17 year old Honda that we got cheap from a family member to work. We have a little credit card debt, but some big educational loans used to pay for law school. We have good insurance though work. After paying off all our utilities, car payment, mortgage, putting away a portion for property taxes, savings for the kids, and our normal savings, there’s just enough for us to have a modest entertainment budget. Just barely. A faimly of 4, making just $8K less than us, will have to totally forgoe something that’s considered essential to healthy living…savings, a good, safe car (van with that size family), education savings. From statistics available today, it would seem that a large number of those families sacrifice health insurance.
SCHIPS helps them out. It allows them to purchase a lower level of coverage and lends a hand with the rest. There’s also significan evidence that families that don’t get CHIPS assistance end up in the ER more often. This simply transfers the cost of providing these families with health care at a higher rate than the SCHIPS program costs. That $30 billion increase may very well reflect a net decrease in overall spending on healthcare.
If congress doesn’t get this overturned, this will be the cause of the next round of GOP defeats to come.
“Why would they want to increase taxes on cigs? It would get to a point where smokers can’t afford to pay for their habit and then you lost all the money you were getting from them to begin with.”
For one, smokers add to health care costs. Don’t argue this one with me…my family just lost a 60-year old grandmother to lung cancer who never smoked a day in her life, but worked around people that did, and has a grandfather with lung cancer who also never smoked, but his wife smoked for years.
Second, smokers have proven to be relatively price inelastic consumers. That means that their purchase habits basically don’t react to price increases.
So, this tax provides a relatively stable supply of funds for at least the next 10-30 years, until the current crop of smokers start to quit/pass away. If new generations of consumers don’t replace them, it’s sort of a win/win. Funds will go down, but so will overall healthcare costs, because there are fewer smokers contributing to healthcare needs.
I loved Trent Lott’s rationalization of the veto. If cigarettes are taxed even more, he argued, people will be less likely to smoke, and the money won’t come in to help people who develop illnesses from smoking. Does the word “Duh” even appear in this guy’s dictionary?
“As for the hypothetical family of 10 children you mention, I would be torn on that. I wouldn’t want the children to suffer for acts of the parents. On the other hand who in their right mind has 10 kids if they can’t support them?”
——-
“1) People who aren’t in ‘their right minds’ or those who are of below average intelligence.
2) People who don’t believe in, or know about using effective birth control. (The latter not necessarily being synonymous with #1)”
Why should we be paying for someone else’s bad decisions? Procreation is not a decision to be taken lighty. If you can’t afford to raise a child, don’t spawn one – the world will go on just fine if you don’t.
“Why should we be paying for someone else’s bad decisions? Procreation is not a decision to be taken lighty. If you can’t afford to raise a child, don’t spawn one – the world will go on just fine if you don’t.”
That would be fine if all you were doing were punishing the parents. But more often than not, the kids do suffer.
Yes, that’s true. That is why sterilization needs to become something to consider.
Nothing about this decision should be surprising considering what a consistently sleazy weasel Bush has been. His remark the other day about how everyone has access to healthcare because they can go to the emergency room tells what an elitist f@#& he is and how little regard he has for people not in his (and his backers) economic strata.
I loved Trent Lott’s rationalization of the veto. If cigarettes are taxed even more, he argued, people will be less likely to smoke, and the money won’t come in to help people who develop illnesses from smoking. Does the word “Duh” even appear in this guy’s dictionary?
I loved Jon Stewart’s riposte: Then we’ll get the poor kids hooked on smoking so then that way they’ll be paying for their own health care.
Everytime you think Bush can’t hit a new low…
He surprises you.
Bush’s career path has been one of setting lower and lower expectations to meet. And just think: We have a full year of us watching him lowering the bar even further!
Posted by campchaos
Twain originally said it about school boards, but it fits well in other places*, so I’ll paraphrase:
* In fact, checking to find exactly what Sour Sam *did* originally say, i just found a Canadian blogger paraphrasing it to attack the Dreaded Canadian Bush-Bashing Liberal Media.
Posted by Tom Saltz at October 5, 2007 09:46 AM
Why would they want to increase taxes on cigs? It would get to a point where smokers can’t afford to pay for their habit and then you lost all the money you were getting from them to begin with.
I find it difficult to believe that raising taxes on something that as of Oct 1, here in Minnesota, is illegal to do in public to fund this bill is completely ludicrous and when that money starts to fall short who will foot the bill?
Government run health care may not be ideal, but it’s certainly better than the corporate run health care we currently have.
Screw Bush, the Republicans, the Democrats, their apologists and their cheerleaders. I still say “us” sometimes when referencing the Democrats, but I registered myself as an independent some time ago now. Both parties are making me sick at this point and games like this are a perfect example of why.
I find it difficult to believe that raising taxes on something that as of Oct 1, here in Minnesota, is illegal to do in public to fund this bill is completely ludicrous and when that money starts to fall short who will foot the bill?
Even if, for the sake of arguement, we assume that not one red cent will be collected in cigarette taxes to pay for this, I still think it’s worth it. The money goes into preventative care that will save much larger amounts that would be spent on emergency room visits. People without health insurance are unlikely to be able to pay for that, either. Therefore, the taxpayers would end up footing the bill, regardless. It’s just smaller on this end.
At this point, we have the Dems trying to make the Republicans look bad, and the President determined to use up every last drop of his political capital before leaving office. So it REALLY sucks to be a Republican lawmaker, because Bush is on the political equivalent of a kamikaze run…he doesn’t want to leave office popular, he wants to leave office having forced through as much stuff of his and blocked as much stuff NOT his as possible. Popularity is useless currency when you can’t run for a third term, after all, and Cheney’s not running either, so Bush doesn’t have to worry about keeping his veep looking good.
Meanwhile, the Democrats probably know that it’s pointless to do stuff that makes Bush look bad at this time, but hope for as many Republican congresscritters to get caught in the splash as possible. Every time a Senator votes not to end debate or every time a Representative votes to not override a veto out of party loyalty, they hand their next election opponent another bullet for the gun. Sure, it can backfire in some cases, if the Republicans can spin it so that it’s the Dems’ fault for putting up an unpassable bill, but SCHIP’s not going to be one of those cases, I’m thinking. “Think of the children” rallies people a LOT better than “socialized medicine booga booga” these days.
Hmmmm. Bush doesn’t really care about the poor children or he would have signed the bill with a written statement that it does not apply to any middle class families.
82,000$ may NOT be a lot, depending on where you are. 82K in upstate New York is a far cry from Long Island, Manhattan, San Fran, or suburban CT. Our household makes more than that, and at $3 a pop for school lunches, times four kids, is $60 a week, or $240 a month, which is ridiculous, and we don’t qualify for reduced price (there’s no sliding scale, it’s either $3 or 40 cents). Therefore, my kids don’t get them. Add in gas at $2.80 a gallon, you’re adding another 400-500$ a month in travel costs. Add in a 20% surcharge on groceries for living in a “high income” area (I’m not kidding, it really works this way. High welfare cities have cheaper corporate prices); there goes another $700 a month – not counting eating out. We pay $350 a month in Health Insurance. Add in a moderate home with $500 a month just in taxes, and you can see how 82,000 flies out the window before you even know you made it. I’m up to $2,000 a month already without talking about rent or mortgage, car payments, utilities, Holidays, savings, or kids’ clothes. Now imagine if you ever wanted to see a movie (6 people x $9 x soda x popcorn = $115 for ONE movie) or take a vacation… If you have no insurance, one, just ONE (Lamictal) of my kid’s medications is $600 (six hundred) a prescription. Imagine if every doctor visit had a $150 co-pay.
Sadly, what seemed a huge fortune 20 years ago buys you squat in the 21st century.
May the ghosts of children dying from lack of health care haunt bush (I won’t capitalize that) and his cronies to their graves.
Posted by: John at October 5, 2007 09:21 AM
As for the hypothetical family of 10 children you mention, I would be torn on that. I wouldn’t want the children to suffer for acts of the parents. On the other hand who in their right mind has 10 kids if they can’t support them?
1) People who aren’t in ‘their right minds’ or those who are of below average intelligence.
2) People who don’t believe in, or know about using effective birth control. (The latter not necessarily being synonymous with #1)
John, you’re forgetting those of us who foster and adopt – that’s how I’m up to 5. If more people took in one extra, the rest of us wouldn’t have to take in so many.
I look forward to hearing you advocate cutting funding to the Iraq occupation in proportion to the increased cost and stupidity involved.
It’s times like these I’m proud to be Canadian.
Bush looks after his friends at Big Tobacco and Big Medicine and somehow thinks a ham-fisted speech about the ‘Socialized Medicine’ Boogeyman will cover his tracks. A society should be about people looking after people, and not about letting big business decide the fates of others.
I’m sorry, but this is looking more and more like a creeping attempt to institute a national health care program, overseen and run by the same people who 10 or so years ago, were writing checks like money was water. Of course water is getting scarce here in Georgia. Canada and England are perfect examples of why we don’t need Nationalized healthcare. 15-20 years ago, my parents were still able to barter services for medical care…after that became a no-no (made so by the government that now seeks to control the same billion dollar industry, prices went up, insurence became a must, and nobidy thinks about what the TRUE cost of medical care is…But say POOR peopel , especially kids, don’t have insurence coverage, and “OH NO! Bush is evil!!!” No blame on the idiots who brought millions of kids into the world with out any means to support or care for them. No, they’s just poor. They’s can’t help it. Stick ’em back on the gov’t plantation. It ain’t their fault they don’t know no better!
I didn’t realize Canada and England separated children from their parents and sold them as commodities. It’s a wonder some brave successor to Rosa Parks like you hasn’t spoken up before.
“I look forward to hearing you advocate cutting funding to the Iraq occupation in proportion to the increased cost and stupidity involved.”
I’m sure the irony of Bush having no trouble funding endeavors to take lives rather than save them has escaped someone as irony-free as you.
Bush doesn’t care about poor children. The fact that he was willing to send them in poorly equipped indicates he doesn’t care about our soldiers. But don’t worry: If it’s any consolation, while you’re busy coming up with every knee-jerk defense of him you can, consider that he very likely doesn’t give a dámņ about you, either.
Done with you now.
PAD
I implied no defense of Bush, and you are literally inferring the cited “increased cost and stupidity” on the part of the Iraq occupation as a defense of him for reasons only you know.
Some day you may go so far as to Start™ at which point I’m sure I’ll learn what real trouble is.
“No blame on the idiots who brought millions of kids into the world with out any means to support or care for them.”
I’m going to break a rule I’ve given myself, that being when a post really really pìššëš me off to wait for a while before responding. You might want to learn some of the situations before writing checks with your mouth that not just your butt but the rest of your dámņ body can’t cash. See, my son is on the Pennsylvania CHIP program. When my wife got pregnant, we were pulling in sixty grand a year. By the time our son was born, due to downsizing at both our companies, we were at half that. That was six years ago. We’ve just now topped forty grand a year, and neither of our jobs offers benefits for children. Hëll, her job doesn’t even cover her. Throw into the mix that I spent two years taking care of dying parents and your attitude really, really pìššëš me off. I’m sure the sun is brightly shining on your lawn that’s green because it’s made of hundred dollar bills, but you know what? Shìŧ happens to real people and real people end up with big problems. I’m so angry right now I won’t even begin to address your either horrendous spelling or horrendous typing.
Sorry about the rant, everybody. Attitudes like that just really get my Irish up.
I tend to see this as another attempt to slip government control of the health care system under the door. Hillary care by increments as it were. And under the expanded system, ADULTS between 18 and 25 would also be eligible for this program. Adults should be able to decide for themselves about their health care needs, not the government.
And Peter, we agree on one thing. Congress IS fricken useless no matter which side of the political coin is in temporary control. We’ve reached that point in our country’s history where the sheeple have learned to vote themselves “bread and circuses”. And I have very little faith in them or the executive branch. The nice thing about the extremely low approval ratings for Congress and the President is that it indicates a basic distrust of government by the sheeple. Maybe things are as they should be in that reguard.
To Bobb Alfred: Note, there are certain benefits to people dying early (no, I’m not making fun of anyone who has died an untimely death). For one, the government doesn’t have to pay out socialist security payments when they reach retirement age…a total win for the government. Secondly, all that money paid into Medicare is gone too since they made it to the finishing line too early to collect anything. The person’s own health care provider took it in the shorts, not the government. They win again. And if you look at it from the government’s point of view, living longer costs them waaaay more because of the last two subjects. You actually get some of your retirement money back, ditto with Medicare. This is also why the government doesn’t give anyone full SS benefits at age 65 anymore. You’ll get too much of your money back!
C. Schwehr: With all due dis-respect….fûçk off. I don’t know how much more crystal I can make this than I did in my last post…my family just lost a member…60 years young…we buried her on Thursday.
You can take all that money the government saved by the “untimely death” and shove it up your unsympathetic ášš. I’ll be sure to pass on to my sister-in-law, niece, and nephew that they can all stop crying because you see some good in the death of their beloved Nana.
Your lack of humanity appalls and disgusts me.
Bobb, you and your family have my sympathies and condolences. Just wish I could offer something more.
> Hillary care by increments as it were.
Given the money she receives from the health care industry to fund her campaign, don’t hold your breath on this ever happening if she makes it into the White House again.
Bobb, sorry about your loss.