posted September 25, 2007 01:24 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Groups representing most facets of the nation's health care system are lining up in support of a large spending increase for a popular children's insurance program, even as President Bush renewed his veto vow Tuesday.
art.bush.pool.jpgPresident Bush has threatens to veto the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
The major lobbying groups for insurers, doctors and hospitals said they stand behind a proposal to more than double spending on the State Children's Health Insurance Program. To pay for the increased spending, supporters seek a 61 cent increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes. Comparable tax increases would also be applied to other tobacco products.
The legislation, which still wasn't available to the public late Monday evening, was to come up for a vote in the House on Tuesday. It was expected to pass easily.
However, Bush repeatedly has promised to veto the bill. A White House statement issued shortly before the House debate was to open said the bill "goes too far toward federalizing health care" and offers help to families that do not need it.
The most critical test will be whether at least two-thirds of the House members support the bill -- the number needed to override a veto. Most analysts believe the bill is not likely to get that many votes.
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The health insurance program, known as SCHIP, provides coverage to about 6 million children and 600,000 adults. Supporters said the bill under consideration Tuesday in the House and Wednesday in the Senate would raise that enrollment number to about 10 million children.
Richard Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, said Monday that children without health insurance were 21/2 times more likely to go without care for an illness than were children with insurance. Also, uninsured children were four times as likely as insured children to seek treatment in an emergency room.
He said the legislation being considered this week would help ensure that minor illnesses didn't become major illnesses for many children.
Bush supports a smaller spending increase for SCHIP: $5 billion over five years. The bill before Congress calls for a $35 billion increase.
Bush said he opposes the bill because it would turn SCHIP into a program that covers wealthier families who already have private health insurance.
"Instead of expanding SCHIP beyond its original scope, we should return it to its original focus, and that is helping poor children, those who are most in need," Bush said last week.
Sens. Max Baucus, D-Montana, and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, took issue with Bush's description of their legislation. They said the vast majority of children participating in SCHIP would still live in families whose incomes are below twice the federal poverty level -- $34,340 for a family of three.
"This program is a low-income kids program. There's just no doubt," Baucus said.
Grassley said that about half of the spending increase being proposed is needed just to cover the program's existing population.
Grassley emphasized that the legislation would not change the law about who is allowed into the program. If eligibility limits were increased to the levels described by the president -- $83,000 for a family of four -- it would have to be done with the administration's approval. Such approval is unlikely to occur, given that the administration just rejected such a request from the state of New York, he said.
Republicans will argue that tobacco taxes fall hardest on the working poor, the very people SCHIP was designed to help. About a third of adults who live in poverty are smokers.
"Under this scheme, the poorest Americans will be burdened with even higher federal taxes so that wealthier families and businesses can shift the cost of their health care coverage to the American taxpayers," said Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas and Nathan Deal, R-Georgia, in a letter to colleagues.
Republicans will also argue that the legislation relies on "gimmicks" to appear more affordable. Specifically, the bill authorizes $14.25 billion during the first 6 months of 2012; then slashes the amount to $1.75 billion for the second 6 months of that year. It then assumes the lower spending level for the program's duration.
As a result, Congress will have to find more revenue to maintain coverage for all enrollees after 2012, or states will have to slash enrollment. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/25/children.sinsurance.ap/index.html
This ******* doesn't care about anyone but himself. How dare he spend gazillions on war and veto this like it's nothing? What's the reason for the veto? Children are not important enough? I hope America opens its eyes to the real issues facing America. Out of the small towns people....there is another world that you are not aware of. You just think u are.
Hurt Boy at Center of Political Firestorm
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN,
The New York Times
Posted: 2007-10-10 12:06:37
WASHINGTON (Oct. 9) - There have been moments when the fight between Congressional Democrats and President Bush over the State Children’s Health Insurance Program seemed to devolve into a shouting match about who loves children more.
So when Democrats enlisted 12-year-old Graeme Frost, who along with a younger sister relied on the program for treatment of severe brain injuries suffered in a car crash, to give the response to Mr. Bush’s weekly radio address on Sept. 29, Republican opponents quickly accused them of exploiting the boy to score political points.
Photo Gallery: Critics Attack 12-Year-old
Doug Mills, The New York Times
Graeme Frost, 12, gave the Democratic response to President Bush's radio address on the children's health care plan known as S-chip on Sept. 29. Critics said the boy was exploited, and have attacked Frost and his family.
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Then, they wasted little time in going after him to score their own.
In recent days, Graeme and his family have been attacked by conservative bloggers and other critics of the Democrats’ plan to expand the insurance program, known as S-chip. They scrutinized the family’s income and assets — even alleged the counters in their kitchen to be granite — and declared that the Frosts did not seem needy enough for government benefits.
But what on the surface appears to be yet another partisan feud, all the nastier because a child is at the center of it, actually cuts to the most substantive debate around S-chip. Democrats say it is crucially needed to help the working poor — Medicaid already helps the impoverished — but many Republicans say it now helps too many people with the means to help themselves.
The feud also illustrates what can happen when politicians showcase real people to make a point, a popular but often perilous technique. And in this case, the discourse has been anything but polite.
The critics accused Graeme’s father, Halsey, a self-employed woodworker, of choosing not to provide insurance for his family of six, even though he owned his own business. They pointed out that Graeme attends an expensive private school. And they asserted that the family’s home had undergone extensive remodeling, and that its market value could exceed $400,000.
One critic, in an e-mail message to Graeme’s mother, Bonnie, warned: “Lie down with dogs, and expect to get fleas.” As it turns out, the Frosts say, Graeme attends the private school on scholarship. The business that the critics said Mr. Frost owned was dissolved in 1999. The family’s home, in the modest Butchers Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, was bought for $55,000 in 1990 and is now worth about $260,000, according to public records. And, for the record, the Frosts say, their kitchen counters are concrete.
Certainly the Frosts are not destitute. They also own a commercial property, valued at about $160,000, that provides rental income. Mr. Frost works intermittently in woodworking and as a welder, while Mrs. Frost has a part-time job at a firm that provides services to publishers of medical journals. Her job does not provide health coverage.
Under the Maryland child health program, a family of six must earn less than $55,220 a year for children to qualify. The program does not require applicants to list their assets, which do not affect eligibility.
In a telephone interview, the Frosts said they had recently been rejected by three private insurance companies because of pre-existing medical conditions. “We stood up in the first place because S-chip really helped our family and we wanted to help other families,” Mrs. Frost said.
“We work hard, we’re honest, we pay our taxes,” Mr. Frost said, adding, “There are hard-working families that really need affordable health insurance.”
Democrats, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have risen to the Frosts’ defense, saying they earn about $45,000 a year and are precisely the type of working-poor Americans that the program was intended to help.
Ms. Pelosi on Tuesday said, “I think it’s really a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against S-chip that they would attack a 12-year-old boy.”
The House and Senate approved legislation to expand the child health program by $35 billion over five years. President Bush, who proposed a lower increase, vetoed the bill last week. Mr. Bush said the Democrats’ plan was fiscally unsound and would raise taxes; the Democrats say he is willing to spend billions on the Iraq war but not on health care for American children.
Mr. Bush’s plan could force states to tighten eligibility limits, but it seemed likely that the Frost children would still be covered.
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Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance, have backed off.
An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.
But Michelle Malkin, one of the bloggers who have strongly criticized the Frosts, insisted Republicans should hold their ground and not pull punches.
“The bottom line here is that this family has considerable assets,” Ms. Malkin wrote in an e-mail message. “Maryland’s S-chip program does not means-test. The refusal to do assets tests on federal health insurance programs is why federal entitlements are exploding and government keeps expanding. If Republicans don’t have the guts to hold the line, they deserve to lose their seats.”
As for accusations that bloggers were unfairly attacking a 12-year-old, Ms. Malkin wrote on her blog, “If you don’t want questions, don’t foist these children onto the public stage.”
Mr. and Mrs. Frost said they were bothered by the assertion that they lacked health coverage by their own choice.
“That is not true at all,” Mrs. Frost said. “Basically all these naysayers need to lay the facts out on the page, and say, ‘How could a family be able to do this?’ S-chip is a stopgap.”
Copyright © 2007 The New York Times Company
2007-10-10 09:33:00
http://news.aol.com/story/ar/_a/hurt-boy-at-center-of-political/20071010093209990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Lindaland
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posted September 25, 2007 01:24 PM
posted September 25, 2007 02:03 PM
posted September 25, 2007 04:00 PM
and considering the bill provides insurance to "children"..up to age 25 
posted September 28, 2007 08:22 AM
posted October 02, 2007 02:31 PM
posted October 02, 2007 07:36 PM
posted October 03, 2007 10:30 AM
