A Quick Callout on SCHIP BS

The following letter appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times last Thursday; I'd answer it in print myself, but I'm already working on something else...

The most recent display of dishonesty around healthcare reform is just too much to take! Congressman Patrick Murphy and Sens. Bob Casey and even Arlen Specter have all sunk to a new low as they sell us out and then hide behind "the children."

Forcing this grotesque expansion of out-of-control government spending down our throats is unconscionable. Bush was absolutely right to veto the SCHIP expansion bill. It is more of the same from Congress: higher taxes and spending, and a blatant move toward socialized health care.

SCHIP was meant for poor children, but our representatives are trying to expand the program to include adults, and kids whose parents make as much as $80,000 a year! Congress should not be redistributing money from poor smokers to families that can afford private health insurance.

Ruining the entire healthcare system in response to those that simply need assistance obtaining insurance is just throwing the baby out with the bath water.

What we need is real health care reform that establishes a responsible system of promoting private insurance and providing premium assistance for those families that need it most.

Scott Porter
Northampton, PA

This Think Progress link tells you that the magical number of $80,000 ($83K to be exact)...

...comes from a request from New York to cover children in some slightly higher-income households because of the state’s high cost of living, but the final Congressional agreement put the poorest children “first in line” for benefits.

Center for American Progress health care analyst Jeanne Lambrew notes that the section 106 of the bill specifically ensures that there will not be any expansion of eligibility. “It overwhelming(ly) targets resources to low-income children and it discourages expansion to families with more moderate incomes by lowering the share the federal government will pay for such coverage.”

File this under yet another "zombie lie that will never die," I'm sure.