Bush is making this late-day stand to try to salvage his rep as a fiscal conservative who stands in the doorway of socialized medicine. But isn’t it a little late after he pushed through the Medicare prescription plan for Seniors? He knew that Medicare and Social Security were on shaky ground when he and the GOP Congress enacted that turkey.

Believe me, Bush will take a lot of the GOP who have chosen to vote against this down with him in ’08 on this issue alone.

If every one had entry into the world of health care, we wouldn’t need to worry about individual stop gap progams like this.

The notion that there can even exist such a thing as too many children (or adults) covered is just toatally unacceptable to me.

It’s never free, by the way, It’s only pay now or pay more later.
Invest in having a healthy population now and reap the benefits of their conrtibutions-or-
underwrite the costs of a sickly population later.
without reaping any benefits from their contributions to defray costs.
.

it appeared that reductions in the numbers of uninsured children signifigantly outpaced the number of patients transfering medical care from private to the SCHIP program. So my initial reason for backing the program, that kids without insurance get some, stands tall.

This undermines any complaints about collateral damage in Iraq, too, you realize.

Better school, food, babysitters, books, clothing, and saving money for say, college just to name a few things families can do with it.

I’ve seen too many cases of the DVD player and television instead (plus expensive clothing, cars, other toys). Also, I’ve seen a large number of people who have access to preventive care and never use it.

Better school, food, babysitters, books, clothing, and saving money for say, college just to name a few things families can do with it.

reductions in the numbers of uninsured children signifigantly outpaced the number of patients transfering medical care from private to the SCHIP program

Yes. This is key. This can be emphasized by proponents.

Also, anyone that falls under the program and is transfering to SCHIP is going to save a lot of money they could likely use in other areas of taking care of their families.

[scowl] DVD player, big-screen teevee…

One of the problems is that what constitutes a good income in some parts of the country, forces families to live hand-to-mouth in others.

Yes, but a “national” (federal) program should have a single, common standard. It could be this puts, for example, the poverty level higher than it really needs to be (and ought to be) for more depressed areas, while leaving this level short of what may be needed in expensive areas, but so be it. People shouldn’t be rewarded with higher payments (and higher costs to taxpayers) for choosing to live where it is expensive rather than where it is more affordable. If attractive, expensive places are where people are paid what it takes to live there as easily as in less expensive places, the risk of developing “welfare magnets” is introduced.

This is a separate argument than the plain one that the federal poverty level may not be high enough.

(this is the object of research now and then, as well as attempting to better define poverty itself)

Some numbers to back that up would be nice. Even at the 300% range I’m sure there are many people living paycheck to paycheck supporting a house and 2 kids that currently have no insurance.

Here — this will get you started. Note that the issue here is “crowd-out,” switching from private to public insurance, whereas proponents of the bill can emphasize the larger fraction of those who already qualify who would now be covered (an honest argument by itself in favor of the expansion), or proponents could fall back on the use of numbers, “X million new children covered,” etc., to appeal to emotion.

CBO estimate

CBO is disputed by some on the Left. Example:

“A crowd-out effect of less than one-third actually is regarded by many experts as modest. For example, in describing the crowd-out levels under the Senate bill (which are similar to those under the House bill), CBO director Peter Orszag observed during Senate Finance Committee consideration of the bill that to reach this many uninsured children, the Senate approach is ‘pretty much as efficient as you can possibly get’ (except for approaches that would impose mandates on employers, individuals, or states). … although public programs suffer from significant crowd-out effects, they still constitute the most efficient way to cover more of the uninsured.[9] He has noted that ‘no public policy can perfectly target the uninsured, and public insurance expansions like SCHIP remain the most cost-effective means of expanding health insurance coverage.’”

(There’s more on that page that you’ll like, Sam, including attacks on the kind of policies sought instead by Bush.)

“And how many bills has Bush vetoed while in office for nearly seven years?”

I think a better question is with 6 years of a GOP Congress how many has he HAD to veto?

My point was that failure by Bush to veto many bills with excessive spending shows how he is not cost-conscious, much less penurious (nor have been the Congressional Republicans). The money is just not going where liberal Americans want it.

And are you surprised? I am not.

“House Republican leaders berated Democrats for including several targeted spending items, known as ‘earmarks,’ in the 299-page SCHIP bill, which was not available for public review until Monday night. Democrats had declared the bill earmark-free. But Republicans found language directing funds to programs in Tennessee, California and Michigan.”

Some numbers to back that up would be nice. Even at the 300% range I’m sure there are many people living paycheck to paycheck supporting a house and 2 kids that currently have no insurance.

“And how many bills has Bush vetoed while in office for nearly seven years?”

I think a better question is with 6 years of a GOP Congress how many has he HAD to veto?

And as far as scoring political points goes, the Dems aren’t the ones creating this show, Bush is. Its a good bill, its going to help poor kids get healthcare. Shaun hit the nail on the head we he pointed out this exposes the lows of “Compassionate conservatism”.

“Compassion” [sic; generosity of government in the provision of entitlements] in fact was part of why Bush and the Congressional Republicans suffered in 2006. The Republicans have been “compassionate” (that is to say, generous) with the people’s money in many ways, and in fact that is one reason why so many chose to vote against the “Dems Lite” in 2006. (Why vote for Dems Lite when you can have the real thing?)

Plenty of fools who want candy from Mommy and Daddy will agree with the “heartless Scrooge” appeals to emotion, but plenty of us never will. This is, after all, nothing to which people have a right.

The entitlement crowd will never be satisfied and you’ll always hear howls about the GOP’s penury (the entitlement crowd will never be satisfied; it will never be enough). The entitlement mentality is so strong here that there hasn’t been any need to openly suspect private insurance lobbying behind the opposition to the bill.

What is feeble and tardy is Bush’s argument not against federal expansion on an ideological basis, which in fact appeals to the intellectually honest. (This stunt by the Dems is simply an incrementalist flirtation with federal health care for everybody. Note that it targets people who have private health coverage now, getting ‘em hooked and more likely to vote Democratic if they think it’s for “free.”) What’s feeble and tardy is Bush’s objections to the increased costs. Yes, the increase should be fought but Bush and the GOP in Congress have been huge spenders. And how many bills has Bush vetoed while in office for nearly seven years?

Meanwhile: Kaiser (whose side of government health care everyone it takes, everyone ought to know already) has an assortment of editorials and opinion pieces here. I also found at least one Web page so far that discusses what should be of interest even though so many on this site expect the Democrats to win the White House: What do the GOP candidates have to say? Well, they’re talking the predictable talk, at least.

Children need to be someone’s dependents so 18 is the cap. Income limit is going to be upped from 200% of the federal poverty level to 300% of it. Its a federal program requiring registration and ID, so illegal immigrants won’t be included.

The problem a number of critics have is that they can raise the income ceiling so long as progress toward covering the original beneficiaries is made — that’s all. This is a large expansion that will see many currently with insurance switching to government insurance.

And as far as scoring political points goes, the Dems aren’t the ones creating this show, Bush is. Its a good bill, its going to help poor kids get healthcare. Shaun hit the nail on the head we he pointed out this exposes the lows of “Compassionate conservatism”.

This is a big expansion and it targets many with higher incomes. The poor kids are simply the object of appeals to emotion.

“Compassionate conservatism”: Plenty of us want no part of a touchy-feely government seen more as a provider and parent than as a government. Also, this is coming from the same President who also was speaking in Spanish as well as in English at the same time that phrase was used (albeit he spoke Spanish como un borracho), and who has often now been saying people should learn English (while he continues to undermine long-needed and widely-wanted immigration reform in order to do the bidding of the business community).

Children need to be someone’s dependents so 18 is the cap. Income limit is going to be upped from 200% of the federal poverty level to 300% of it. Its a federal program requiring registration and ID, so illegal immigrants won’t be included.

And as far as scoring political points goes, the Dems aren’t the ones creating this show, Bush is. Its a good bill, its going to help poor kids get healthcare. Shaun hit the nail on the head we he pointed out this exposes the lows of “Compassionate conservatism”.

The Democrats and activists may exploit this issue among the overgrown children but those who have actually looked at the bill know better and are better.

“Unfortunately, instead of working with the administration to enact this funding increase for children’s health, Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know that will be vetoed. One of their leaders has even said such a veto would be, ‘a political victory.’

As if this weren’t irresponsible enough, Congress is waiting until the S-CHIP program is just about to expire before getting a final bill passed. In other words, members of Congress are putting health coverage for poor children at risk so they can score political points in Washington.”

Criticisms of SCHIP expansion here, here…

By the way, I’ll defend Bush against the worst directed at him, but I’m no die-hard supporter of him, nor are most of us, so don’t bother with any “few faithful” insult and lie.