Conservatives lack compassion and common sense for kid's health care

[irishbobcat]

The White House Tries To Answer a Question
Submitted by Bill Scher on October 1, 2007 - 12:55pm.
Kudos to Rebecca from Saint Paul! She submitted one of our proposed State Children's Health Insurance Program questions to "Ask The White House:"

SCHIP has succeeded in cutting the rate of uninsured children, while the rate of uninsured adults has gone up. But we still have 9 million uninsured kids to cover.

Why do you want to restrict the focus of a successful program, when there is clearly more work left to do?

And the poor saps, not used to dealing with substantive questions, actually posted it and tried to answer it.

Kerry Weems, the acting administrator of Medicare and Medicaid, was unable to give a clear answer, let alone a factual answer.

After trying to insist that President Bush just loves SCHIP and can't wait to reauthorize it, Weems shifts into "however" mode:

... However, the 9 million uninsured children that you have referenced include children who are not eligible for SCHIP because they are in families with higher incomes, they are not eligible because they are not citizens, or they are eligible for Medicaid rather than SCHIP, but not enrolled. According to the Urban Institute, the number of low-income children who were uninsured for a full year and eligible for SCHIP is approximately one million. We believe the success supports our views that SCHIP can be reauthorized with a modest increase in funding, rather than the $35 billion increase under the new legislation. And it's important to remember, under the legislation, billions of dollars would be spent on individuals who already have insurance or who are not currently eligible for SCHIP.

In reality, the Urban Institute found that "close to 2 million uninsured children ... are eligible for SCHIP but not yet enrolled." And the Congressional Budget Office found that the bill to expand SCHIP would enroll nearly 3 million kids currently eligible for, but still without, coverage.

And since the proposed expansion only expects to cover an additional 4 million kids total, out of the 9 million remaining uninsured -- a limitation necessary to attract Republican support -- that means the bulk of the expansion would help cover kids already eligible.

But numbers aside, the White House's own argument exposes the conservative brand of compassion.

The White House notes that most of those 9 million uninsured kids aren't eligible for SCHIP.

The White House response to that fact is not: let's expand SCHIP and get those kids covered!

Their response is: let's restrict SCHIP eligibility so those kids can't get coverage.

Bush and his fellow conservatives think they can get compassion points by recognizing SCHIP is a government program that has worked.

But common sense says you build on what works. Conservatives -- being fundamentally opposed to good government -- are hell-bent on showing that they lack not only compassion, but common sense.