ABANDON SCHIP? Will Dems Again Bow To Your Nincompoop-In-Chief's Veto Threat, This Time On Poor Kids' Health Coverage?

PROBABLY, predictably, the gutless Democrat-controlled Congress will
fail again to truly confront your White House war criminal on the
sustainment and justifiable expansion of the State Children's Health
Insurance Program (SCHIP) that privides health insurance coverage for
America's impoverished kids.

Never mind that Bushie touted himself a "compassionate conservative"
in his two runs for president -- or that he still describes himself as
a "born again Christian," or that his illegal and immoral war in Iraq
has claimed no less than ONE-MILLION HUMAN LIVES, or that his
continued neglect of Katrina's victims and a destroyed New Orleans
constitute criminal malfeasance, the magnitude of which is
unprecedented in any "administration"!

He is determined to veto a bill that would insure poor children under
a health and well-being program that has been an unqualified succcess.

Chimpy, you see, is, as always, looking out for his rich friends and
wealthy campaign contributors, in SCHIPP's case, the ever-greedy
health care and drug-manufacturer CEOs.

And if oppposition to his "Operation Blood For Oil" in Iraq is any
gauge, your weak-kneed U.S. senators and representatives, who seem to
have the votes to override a veto, will cravenly chicken-out and "back-
off" the SCHIPP.

Cowed again by the now Un-United States's worst "president."

Sickening, isn't it?

Isn't he?

------
"The Right Fight for Democrats"

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Opionion
The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 25, 2007; A19

This week's showdown over children's health insurance is the first
skirmish in the new battle for universal health coverage. It is also
the first confrontation between the president and Congress fought out
almost entirely on terms set by the new Democratic majority.

On no spending issue do Democrats have broader public support -- or
more Republican allies -- than on expanding the State Children's
Health Insurance Program. That is why they have chosen this as the
issue on which they want to take their first stand.

Bush, in the meantime, has confirmed what was clear when he was
governor of Texas but little noted when he first ran for president:
When it comes to expanding government-sponsored health insurance for
low-income kids, he is a skeptic. Health and Human Services Secretary
Mike Leavitt coined a new word last week by saying that it's "the
ideologic question that we want to focus on." He was candidly
describing an administration dug into a posture that even conservative
Republicans in Congress reject.

On its face, Bush's fight over SCHIP seems oddly chosen. The program
provides coverage for children from families too poor to afford
private insurance but not eligible for Medicaid. In many ways, it is a
Republican creation. It made it through a GOP Congress in 1997 thanks
to the work of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is now furious about
Bush's veto threat.

By virtually all measures, the program has achieved exactly what it
promised, and at a reasonable cost. But Bush argues that the $35
billion, five-year expansion of the program, worked out between the
Democrats and such leading Republicans as Hatch and Sen. Chuck
Grassley of Iowa, might push too many children into government
insurance. Bush wants a $5 billion expansion over five years, which
the Congressional Budget Office says would eventually shove more than
1 million children out of the program at a moment when the number of
children without health insurance is growing after years of decline.
(That decline, by the way, was due in significant part to the success
of SCHIP.) The goal of Hatch, Grassley and the Democrats is to expand
the program to 10 million children from the roughly 6.6 million
covered now.

This battle is central to the long-term goal of universal coverage. If
a proposal with broad bipartisan support that is friendly to state
governments and covers the most beloved group in society -- children
-- can't avoid being gutted for ideological reasons, what hope is
there for a larger health compromise?

Bush has been here before. He now says he wants to make sure the
program is limited to children from families at 200 percent of the
poverty level (roughly $41,300 a year for a family of four). But as
governor of Texas, he wouldn't even go that far, seeking to limit
coverage under SCHIP to families at 150 percent of the poverty line.
Democrats in the Legislature finally pushed him to 200 percent. Bush
was putting up his resistance in 1999, when Texas ranked second to
last among states in the percentage of uninsured children.

Democrats feel confident in picking this fight because any
presidential claim that this is a battle about fiscal responsibility
(the difference between the president and Congress is roughly $6
billion a year) is belied by the president's $200 billion request for
Iraq and Afghanistan for this year alone. Democrats are arguing that
41 days' worth of Iraq spending would provide health coverage for 10
million children each year -- not a comparison the administration
relishes.

In theory, SCHIP expires at the end of the month. Senate Republican
leaders clearly fear that the president's expected veto would be seen
as throwing children off the health insurance rolls. Therefore, they
have insisted, in advance of a vote on the bill, that Democrats agree
to grant a temporary extension if Congress fails to override Bush.
This reduces the Democrats' leverage but is also a concession that
Republicans know how vulnerable the administration is.

There are other pressure points. If Bush won't do business with the
Democrats on a children's health bill, he could poison efforts to
renew his No Child Left Behind education program, which also expires
at the end of the month. Bush needs Democratic votes for renewal
because of Republican defections.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), one of the leading sponsors of the
children's health bill, could not resist arguing that "it's a bizarre
thing that a president who believes in testing kids for math does not
believe in testing kids for measles and mumps."

Democrats are placing a lot of chips on SCHIP. Only moderate
Republicans and compassionate conservatives willing to challenge
Bush's veto can save their party from the president's anti-SCHIP
obsession.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092401320.html

***

OF COURSE Bushie's stance on this, aside from his desire to please his
drug and HMO CEOs, is his determination NOT TO ALLOW the Dems to gloat
AFTER he signs the bill, should he do so. Which I wouldn't bet on.

***

On Sep 25, 8:44 am, Akneigh Wombuster wrote:
PROBABLY, predictably, the gutless Democrat-controlled Congress will
fail again to truly confront your White House war criminal on the
sustainment and justifiable expansion of the State Children's Health
Insurance Program (SCHIP) that privides health insurance coverage for
America's impoverished kids.

Never mind that Bushie touted himself a "compassionate conservative"
in his two runs for president -- or that he still describes himself as
a "born again Christian," or that his illegal and immoral war in Iraq
has claimed no less than ONE-MILLION HUMAN LIVES, or that his
continued neglect of Katrina's victims and a destroyed New Orleans
constitute criminal malfeasance, the magnitude of which is
unprecedented in any "administration"!

He is determined to veto a bill that would insure poor children under
a health and well-being program that has been an unqualified succcess.

Chimpy, you see, is, as always, looking out for his rich friends and
wealthy campaign contributors, in SCHIPP's case, the ever-greedy
health care and drug-manufacturer CEOs.

And if oppposition to his "Operation Blood For Oil" in Iraq is any
gauge, your weak-kneed U.S. senators and representatives, who seem to
have the votes to override a veto, will cravenly chicken-out and "back-
off" the SCHIPP.

Cowed again by the now Un-United States's worst "president."

Sickening, isn't it?

Isn't he?

------
"The Right Fight for Democrats"

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Opionion
The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 25, 2007; A19

This week's showdown over children's health insurance is the first
skirmish in the new battle for universal health coverage. It is also
the first confrontation between the president and Congress fought out
almost entirely on terms set by the new Democratic majority.

On no spending issue do Democrats have broader public support -- or
more Republican allies -- than on expanding the State Children's
Health Insurance Program. That is why they have chosen this as the
issue on which they want to take their first stand.

Bush, in the meantime, has confirmed what was clear when he was
governor of Texas but little noted when he first ran for president:
When it comes to expanding government-sponsored health insurance for
low-income kids, he is a skeptic. Health and Human Services Secretary
Mike Leavitt coined a new word last week by saying that it's "the
ideologic question that we want to focus on." He was candidly
describing an administration dug into a posture that even conservative
Republicans in Congress reject.

On its face, Bush's fight over SCHIP seems oddly chosen. The program
provides coverage for children from families too poor to afford
private insurance but not eligible for Medicaid. In many ways, it is a
Republican creation. It made it through a GOP Congress in 1997 thanks
to the work of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is now furious about
Bush's veto threat.

By virtually all measures, the program has achieved exactly what it
promised, and at a reasonable cost. But Bush argues that the $35
billion, five-year expansion of the program, worked out between the
Democrats and such leading Republicans as Hatch and Sen. Chuck
Grassley of Iowa, might push too many children into government
insurance. Bush wants a $5 billion expansion over five years, which
the Congressional Budget Office says would eventually shove more than
1 million children out of the program at a moment when the number of
children without health insurance is growing after years of decline.
(That decline, by the way, was due in significant part to the success
of SCHIP.) The goal of Hatch, Grassley and the Democrats is to expand
the program to 10 million children from the roughly 6.6 million
covered now.

This battle is central to the long-term goal of universal coverage. If
a proposal with broad bipartisan support that is friendly to state
governments and covers the most beloved group in society -- children
-- can't avoid being gutted for ideological reasons, what hope is
there for a larger health compromise?

Bush has been here before. He now says he wants to make sure the
program is limited to children from families at 200 percent of the
poverty level (roughly $41,300 a year for a family of four). But as
governor of Texas, he wouldn't even go that far, seeking to limit
coverage under SCHIP to families at 150 percent of the poverty line.
Democrats in the Legislature finally pushed him to 200 percent. Bush
was putting up his resistance in 1999, when Texas ranked second to
last among states in the percentage of uninsured children.

Democrats feel confident in picking this fight because any
presidential claim that this is a battle about fiscal responsibility
(the difference between the president and Congress is roughly $6
billion a year) is belied by the president's $200 billion request for
Iraq and Afghanistan for this year alone. Democrats are arguing that
41 days' worth of Iraq spending would provide health coverage for 10
million children each year -- not a comparison the administration
relishes.

In theory, SCHIP expires at the end of the month. Senate Republican
leaders clearly fear that the president's expected veto would be seen
as throwing children off the health insurance rolls. Therefore, they
have insisted, in advance of a vote on the bill, that Democrats agree
to grant a temporary extension if Congress fails to override Bush.
This reduces the Democrats' leverage but is also a concession that
Republicans know how vulnerable the administration is.

There are other pressure points. If Bush won't do business with the
Democrats on a children's health bill, he could poison efforts to
renew his No Child Left Behind education program, which also expires
at the end of the month. Bush needs Democratic votes for renewal
because of Republican defections.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), one of the leading sponsors of the
children's health bill, could not resist arguing that "it's a bizarre
thing that a president who believes in testing kids for math does not
believe in testing kids for measles and mumps."

Democrats are placing a lot of chips on SCHIP. Only moderate
Republicans and compassionate conservatives willing to challenge
Bush's veto can save their party from the president's anti-SCHIP
obsession.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...07/09/24/Ar200...

Clinton made the same threat in '94 about required insurance.

Facist Amerika doesnt care either way. Got a small nation we can eat and gloat about?
Deep Recession is near, of course.



Akneigh Wombuster wrote:

PROBABLY, predictably, the gutless Democrat-controlled Congress will
fail again to truly confront your White House war criminal on the
sustainment and justifiable expansion of the State Children's Health
Insurance Program (SCHIP) that privides health insurance coverage for
America's impoverished kids.

Never mind that Bushie touted himself a "compassionate conservative"
in his two runs for president -- or that he still describes himself as
a "born again Christian," or that his illegal and immoral war in Iraq
has claimed no less than ONE-MILLION HUMAN LIVES, or that his
continued neglect of Katrina's victims and a destroyed New Orleans
constitute criminal malfeasance, the magnitude of which is
unprecedented in any "administration"!

He is determined to veto a bill that would insure poor children under
a health and well-being program that has been an unqualified succcess.

Chimpy, you see, is, as always, looking out for his rich friends and
wealthy campaign contributors, in SCHIPP's case, the ever-greedy
health care and drug-manufacturer CEOs.

And if oppposition to his "Operation Blood For Oil" in Iraq is any
gauge, your weak-kneed U.S. senators and representatives, who seem to
have the votes to override a veto, will cravenly chicken-out and "back-
off" the SCHIPP.

Cowed again by the now Un-United States's worst "president."

Sickening, isn't it?

Isn't he?

------
"The Right Fight for Democrats"

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Opionion
The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 25, 2007; A19

This week's showdown over children's health insurance is the first
skirmish in the new battle for universal health coverage. It is also
the first confrontation between the president and Congress fought out
almost entirely on terms set by the new Democratic majority.

On no spending issue do Democrats have broader public support -- or
more Republican allies -- than on expanding the State Children's
Health Insurance Program. That is why they have chosen this as the
issue on which they want to take their first stand.

Bush, in the meantime, has confirmed what was clear when he was
governor of Texas but little noted when he first ran for president:
When it comes to expanding government-sponsored health insurance for
low-income kids, he is a skeptic. Health and Human Services Secretary
Mike Leavitt coined a new word last week by saying that it's "the
ideologic question that we want to focus on." He was candidly
describing an administration dug into a posture that even conservative
Republicans in Congress reject.

On its face, Bush's fight over SCHIP seems oddly chosen. The program
provides coverage for children from families too poor to afford
private insurance but not eligible for Medicaid. In many ways, it is a
Republican creation. It made it through a GOP Congress in 1997 thanks
to the work of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is now furious about
Bush's veto threat.

By virtually all measures, the program has achieved exactly what it
promised, and at a reasonable cost. But Bush argues that the $35
billion, five-year expansion of the program, worked out between the
Democrats and such leading Republicans as Hatch and Sen. Chuck
Grassley of Iowa, might push too many children into government
insurance. Bush wants a $5 billion expansion over five years, which
the Congressional Budget Office says would eventually shove more than
1 million children out of the program at a moment when the number of
children without health insurance is growing after years of decline.
(That decline, by the way, was due in significant part to the success
of SCHIP.) The goal of Hatch, Grassley and the Democrats is to expand
the program to 10 million children from the roughly 6.6 million
covered now.

This battle is central to the long-term goal of universal coverage. If
a proposal with broad bipartisan support that is friendly to state
governments and covers the most beloved group in society -- children
-- can't avoid being gutted for ideological reasons, what hope is
there for a larger health compromise?

Bush has been here before. He now says he wants to make sure the
program is limited to children from families at 200 percent of the
poverty level (roughly $41,300 a year for a family of four). But as
governor of Texas, he wouldn't even go that far, seeking to limit
coverage under SCHIP to families at 150 percent of the poverty line.
Democrats in the Legislature finally pushed him to 200 percent. Bush
was putting up his resistance in 1999, when Texas ranked second to
last among states in the percentage of uninsured children.

Democrats feel confident in picking this fight because any
presidential claim that this is a battle about fiscal responsibility
(the difference between the president and Congress is roughly $6
billion a year) is belied by the president's $200 billion request for
Iraq and Afghanistan for this year alone. Democrats are arguing that
41 days' worth of Iraq spending would provide health coverage for 10
million children each year -- not a comparison the administration
relishes.

In theory, SCHIP expires at the end of the month. Senate Republican
leaders clearly fear that the president's expected veto would be seen
as throwing children off the health insurance rolls. Therefore, they
have insisted, in advance of a vote on the bill, that Democrats agree
to grant a temporary extension if Congress fails to override Bush.
This reduces the Democrats' leverage but is also a concession that
Republicans know how vulnerable the administration is.

There are other pressure points. If Bush won't do business with the
Democrats on a children's health bill, he could poison efforts to
renew his No Child Left Behind education program, which also expires
at the end of the month. Bush needs Democratic votes for renewal
because of Republican defections.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), one of the leading sponsors of the
children's health bill, could not resist arguing that "it's a bizarre
thing that a president who believes in testing kids for math does not
believe in testing kids for measles and mumps."

Democrats are placing a lot of chips on SCHIP. Only moderate
Republicans and compassionate conservatives willing to challenge
Bush's veto can save their party from the president's anti-SCHIP
obsession.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092401320.html