Mitch McConnell has a column at Townhall.com about the political skulduggery surrounding SCHIP. Having supported the original SCHIP bill ten years ago, he now says the Democrats have hijacked the program:
They view the reauthorization of this popular program as a license to raise taxes, increase spending and take a giant leap toward government-run health care.
He points out that the authors of the new SCHIP legislation are being less than forthcoming about their true intentions. Not the least of their prevarications involves the program’s cost:
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office puts the true cost of their new proposal at $112 billion, $41 billion more than the claimed price tag.
And he discusses their deliberate intention to pervert a program designed for poor children into a single-payer system for adults:
A number of states have exploited loopholes to use their children’s health funds on adults. Rather than closing these loopholes, the new proposal protects states that raid their kids’ health funds.
McConnell concludes the column with a rhetorical flourish worthy of Jesse Jackson:
SCHIP was originally created to help the needy. But it’s clear the authors of this new proposal have gotten greedy.
Amen.
Comments 8
You and Mitch get an “E” for effort perhaps, but this pony’s a loser and you know it, Dave.
The only question is how much of those fancy “free-market” advantage “incentive” payments are they gonna cut to pay for it. The whole back-door-communism-health-care-like-your-post-office argument is just not gonna play in Peoria, and you (and Mitch and the insurance companies who fund Mitch) know it.
Thus, the recent petulance and depseration. I guess you can continue to just call everyone liars. I almost feel sorry for you (I stress “almost”). At least Mikey Moore’s hasn’t been giving you guys fits lately.
Posted 09 Aug 2007 at 10:10 am ¶The only question is how much of those fancy “free-market” advantage “incentive” payments are they gonna cut to pay for it.
Sorry, Morris, there isn’t enough money in the MA program to pay for the SCHIP scam. That’s why they’re floating the tobacco tax.
And, if you need to “feel sorry” for someone, you should focus on all the low-income kids who will do without coverage under the “new and improved” SCHIP program.
Posted 09 Aug 2007 at 10:29 am ¶Ditch Mitch published a fact check of McConnell’s oped:
http://ditchmitchky.com/719/schip-fact-check-on-senator-mitch-mcconnell/
Posted 09 Aug 2007 at 5:08 pm ¶Dave [Catron]:
Pardon me for not explicating the obvious: the tobacco tax is a GIVEN if it passes. The major funding issue AT PLAY between the two versions as they stand is whether or not they are gonna go after the MA payments and if so, how much.
Posted 10 Aug 2007 at 12:23 pm ¶Morris, they came up with the tobacco tax only after they started getting heat for not showing how they were going to pay for their “new and improved” SCHIP program.
Their first response to that pressure was to gut MA, but it soon became clear that this might not fly and that there wasn’t enough money there anyway.
Posted 10 Aug 2007 at 1:05 pm ¶The down-and-dirty fight re: whether or not they are going to really try to back-door socialize medicine - as the birchers like yourself like to say - is not in the tobacco tax but rather the MA cuts, which were not in the Senate version, but which were included in the House version. So the Senate and House both okay’d tobacco tax funding . . . the House came in later with the MA cuts. Um-kay?
These cuts either (a) may get committeed away; (b) will remain in place for the additional funds; or (c) will remain in some modified form.
You want your fight for “socialized medicine?”
There is your fight.
Nobody’s fighting over the tobacco tax (except big tobacco). Whatever compromise finally gets approved, it’ll be paid for in part or in whole by tobacco taxes.
End of story.
Posted 10 Aug 2007 at 2:19 pm ¶One more possibility:
(1) SCHIP expands but not as large as House wants; no MA cuts . . . YET.
(2) MA cuts used to save the implementation of physician fee cuts (in same bill or different bill).
So you’d have AMA v. InsCo.
Who’d you side with there?
Posted 10 Aug 2007 at 2:24 pm ¶Whatever compromise finally gets approved, it’ll be paid for in part or in whole by tobacco taxes.
The tobacco tax is a PR gimmick, Morris. It won’t pay for anything. When the increase goes into effect, tobacco sales will decrease (read this). In the end, this new tobacco tax will probably reduce revenue.
So we’re back to the MA cuts, and that money would come out of the pockets of the poorest beneficiaries—not insurance profits. That’s why the NAACP opposes MA cuts.
Posted 10 Aug 2007 at 10:17 pm ¶Post a Comment