Lindsey Graham’s "explanation" of why he voted against SCHIP is completely inadequate, even insulting. He seems to have no rational argument against it, so he resorts to the most primitive gesticulations of the witch doctors of the Republican tribe, shaking the word "government" at it as though it had magical powers to chase away evil spirits.
Why in God’s name would anyone (that is, anyone who is not hypnotized by ideology beyond the ability to reason) reject health care simply because the government is involved in providing it? I grew up in the United States Navy receiving "government" health care from the time I was born until the day they tossed me out into the cruel civilian world as an adult, and guess what? Gummint medicine worked as well as any other.
Anyway, here’s the mumbo-jumbo the Senator sent out. Such nonsense as this is beneath him:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Wes Hickman or Kevin BishopSeptember 27, 2007
Graham Opposes Expansion of Government-Run Health Care
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today will vote against the conference report on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The legislation is expected to pass the Senate. The House of Representatives has already passed SCHIP and President Bush has said he will veto it when it reaches his desk.
“I was very concerned when the SCHIP program was created in 1997 it would eventually be expanded beyond its original purpose,” said Graham. “From the start, there were worries SCHIP could serve as the first brick in the road to national health care. Sure enough, a decade later, Congress will expand the program and add dozens of new bricks on the pathway toward government-run, government-controlled national health care.”
Graham noted several problems with the SCHIP legislation including:
- The expanded SCHIP program moves our nation closer to a single-payer, government-run, government-controlled national health care system.
- The SCHIP program, created in 1997, was originally designed to provide health insurance to low-income children. Under the new expansion, the program will now cover adults and families earning as much as $82,600 a year. This year 13 percent of SCHIP funds will go to adults, not low-income children.
- The program encourages people to move from private health insurance to government-funded health insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), 2 million individuals who are currently insured will move from private insurance to government insurance.
“There are many very serious problems with this legislation,” said Graham. “This bill doubles the cost of the SCHIP program and is a giant step toward nationalized healthcare. In addition, no longer are we just covering low-income children, but adults can now join the program. Finally, we encourage families to drop private insurance and join the government program. This is a very bad day for our health care system and the American taxpayer.”
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But isn’t the point about covering adults and children in families who make more than $80,000 a relevant point? The SCHIP is supposed to be a program for lower income children whose families make just a little too much to qualify for Medicaid. The number of children who lack insurance has dropped in the past 10 years (check http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur200709.pdf if you don’t believe me — it’s in Figure one). To some extent, that decline has to be because SCHIP has been effective for families who meet its current income guidelines. For those who don’t, there ought to be a way to provide assistance (such as helping with private insurance premiums) without pushing them out of the private market and into SCHIP. That is, unless the purpose of the expansion is REALLY to change who pays for medical care from private insurers/employers to the taxpayers. If that is the case, then shouldn’t the debate be about that?
There should be, and that’s why I give you the whole release, rather than just the parts that tick me off — so that we can can have a fully informed debate.
But what I’m reacting to is that the release uses the “government” boogeyman over and over, as thought that, in and of itself, were the objection. If government involvement is OK for kids living at half the poverty level, then the thing that would be wrong about it helping other people wouldn’t be the mere fact that government is involved.
What offended me most of all, and in the midst of my ranting I neglected to get that far, is the idea that this is bad because it gets us toward universal coverage. Not because it gets us there the wrong way, but because it GETS us there, period.
I don’t know if you have to avail yourself of medical care on a regular basis, but I make too much money to be covered by this, AND I have private insurance, and hardly a day goes by that I don’t wonder how I’m going to pay the bills. The co-pays alone are budget-busters. (I recently got filled a prescription for a GENERIC medication for which the co-pay alone was $81 for a month’s supply. It helped with some really nagging problems I’d been having — and which led to surgery earlier this year — but after that first one was filled, I haven’t dreamed of getting a refill.
The system isn’t working for ANY of us, middle class or no, insured or no. We HAVE to come up with a comprehensive approach that, among other things, forces drug costs down (as opposed to that inexcusable mess that the was recently passed giving Medicare drug benefits). The system we have, where we are at the mercy of for-profit private entities (from Big Pharma to the insurance companies), is not working.
Brad, the first time I heard the number, for incomes that would be covered it was double the poverty limit for families with children that might be eligible under this legislation(approx. 40,000) when I heard Lindsey’s first repudiation of it, it jumped to families with a combined income of $60,000, and now in his next repudiation of SCHIP it has jumped to incomes of $80,000 or more. Were extra amendments added to this bill just before they voted? I realize the limits are in part set by states – I know S.C.’s is 200% of the poverty level (approx. $40,000), bur are any states as high as 400% of the poverty level. Where does this $82,600 figure come from?
Our health care (actually health care payment) system in this country is one gigantic mess. What conservatives fail to understand is that we already have socialized medicine. Anyone who comes to an emergency room must, by law, be treated. The law therefore defines health care in America as socialized medicine. What we should do, and the Hillary plan moves us a bit closer in the right direction, is have a single-payer system that completely eliminates the health insurance companies. Of course that would gore one of the coroporate eilites biggest oxes so it will never happen, but it would certainly make life so much simpler and efficient.
Given that the above is unlikely to happen the next best thing would be to increase funding for SCHIP. The annual cost would be about 5% of what the president wants to spend in Iraq next year. This is the second most shameful position stance ever taken by the senior senator from SC.
Since Lindsey Graham makes $165,200 as a U.S. Senator and doesn’t have a family to support and doesn’t have to worry about paying for his own healthcare, maybe he just doesn’t understand the 86,000 for a family of four in some parts of the country is not a whole lot.
He oughta come down from the ivory tower sometime and see what it’s like in the real world. Since he doesn’t have kids, he has no clue what it costs to provide adequate healthcare coverage…
Guess the best decision someone without healthcare should make is to act like an illegal immigrant and go to the emergency room for free. That’s Lindsey Graham’s idea of government healthcare — having U.S. citizens pay for illegals.
Medicare Part D’s inexcusable mess, as you put it, actually has a large majority of seniors satisfied with their coverage. And they get it through those awful private insurance companies — who provide the coverage cheaper than the government-run plan that was proposed as an alternative. And because there is so much choice in part D, most seniors are choosing plans that don’t even have that dreaded donut hole.
Wasn’t there conversation that expansion of this program meant that the money was actually taken out of other programs…that it is a zero sum game and this “win” meant others lost coverage or some other social service?
I don’t have dog in this hunt…I am just asking to see if my memory is true or not.
Government programs typically expand until they become financially obese, becoming a trough at which other purposes feed.
Graham pointed out how that was happening with SCHIP, and that government was setting itself up to compete with the private sector, which nearly always creates problems because government can tax citizens enough to balance the budget on any program it grows, but private businesses have to inflate prices to raise those funds.
That should explain Graham’s vote well enough.
This legislation has two aims. The first being to encourage more people to become dependent on government. Have you not heard anyone say “The more I do for myself, the more they take away from me”? The second being a continued push by the Democrats to paint Republicans as uncaring and mean spirited. Have you not watched the way they smirk every time they introduce something like this?
I have no problem with helping people who need a helping hand, but I think it should be temporary so they will be encouraged to do more for themselves instead of remaining dependent on the taxpayers.
What “msbobbie” says SOUNDS very sensible, which is why a lot of people say it.
But I’ve never been able to subscribe to it, if only because of personal experience. My entire adult life, I have been right up against the ragged edge of not being able to pay medical bills — no matter how much money I was making or how hard I was working, and that’s WITH medical insurance every step of the way.
I have therefore always been acutely aware of how easy it would be to be caught perpetually in a cycle of NEVER being able to pay for necessary medical care, as opposed to it being a temporary condition.
This doesn’t sound right, but I’ll go ahead and say it to make my point: If you go by just about any objective measurement you choose (educational attainment, scores on standardized tests, etc.) I have more on the ball than the average person. That means the MAJORITY of people in this country are a little less able to cope with the complex challenges of maintaining health and paying for it.
If you take those factors, and then take away any kind of private insurance coverage, it boggles the mind. How on Earth can people in that situation EVER expect to get their heads above water?
Mind you, I’m assuming a certain amount of medical costs. People who spend their lives in good health, never needing a doctor (a situation as alien to my experience as being from another planet), often don’t understand what I’m talking about. Maybe they have one big crisis in their families, they get through it, and put it behind them. I’ve never been blessed that way, and there are an awful lot of people like me. We work hard, we contribute, but we have medical expenses ALL THE TIME, and they get heavier and heavier year after year, WITH insurance. Anybody in a similar situation — and there are so many, many people who are MUCH worse off than I have ever been, thank God — who doesn’t have insurance is likely to be stuck in a financial hole for a lifetime.