Nation's children better off in the hands of major corporations.
So today Dubya decided that socialized medicine was just too threatening and expensive to allow uninsured children to be covered by the government. Is $35 billion over five years really too much to spend on uninsured children? We're spending that in less than 2 months for the war in Iraq. It's obvious that it isn't Bush being fiscally conservative that makes him resistant to providing health care to uninsured children. He has no problem throwing money at a quagmire. Its just that he doesn't wanna upset all his friends in the insurance industry.
"I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system. I do want Republicans and Democrats to come together to support a bill that focuses on the poorer children," the president said, adding the government's policy should be to help people find private insurance.
Interesting.. he has no problem with the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program.
"President Bush has often pointed to the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program as a model for health insurance. The FEHB Program is the largest employer-sponsored health insurance program in the Nation, serving more than 8 million Federal employees, annuitants, and their dependents. The U. S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) administers the FEHB Program, which currently offers about 250 health plan choices, providing over $29 billion in health care benefits annually."
The employer being the federal government. Meaning, health insurance ran by the federal government.. This is the same system that provides health insurance to all the members of Congress, and I'm assuming the President and his family, although I have been unable to verify that. (If anyone else is more successful in finding out what insurance dubya gets, i'd love to see it)
"The program gives coverage to parents who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy private insurance for their children. Critics have said their concern is that parents might be prompted to drop private coverage for their children to get cheaper coverage under the bill"
So what? Why do children have to be uninsured because their parents aren't poverty stricken but can't afford the outrageous cost of health insurance? Our government is in utter denial over the financial-health of the middle class. Why should an average family have to scrape by in order to pay for their children's health insurance?
Moral of the story: Spending $720million a day to kill Iraqis and put our soldiers in danger is okay. Spending that every 2 months to insure children, regardless of income, just too risky.
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