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The Fight for Healthcare for poor children has an Hidden agenda
5-Oct-2007
Written by: Tamikka Malloy
Healthcare issues for poor children is in question.
While President Bush seems to be the only one advocating the monies for healthcare to be allocated for poor children, the Democratic Party are masking their intentions.
In Washington this week, members of the Democratic Party tried to use an important policy issue -- how to extend health coverage to more poor children -- to make political hay.
It was a shameful performance, full of deception and dishonesty that was more about political posturing than about poor children.
President Bush seemed to be the only one doing any math. The president proposed to continue the program, provide $5 billion more over five years, and keep it focused on poor children.
Instead, Democratic majorities in the House and Senate constructed an enormous plan to expand SCHIP funding by $35 billion to $50 billion, make a whopping tax increase inevitable, transforming SCHIP into an entitlement program that isn't focused on poor children at all.
Bush proposed to keep SCHIP focused on children whose families make no more than 200 percent of the poverty level -- $20,650 for a family of four.
The Democratic majorities would allow some states to cover children in families at 400 percent of the poverty level -- as much as $80,000 a year.
A Republican Congress created the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1998. It now costs taxpayers $5 billion a year and covers about 6 million children.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called Bush's action "heartless."
Nobody objects to helping poor children. But what kind of taxes would it take to cover a whole new entitlement program?
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