This morning, behind closed doors, George W. Bush vetoed the SCHIP legislation. Millions of children are already denied access to essential and affordable health care. Tens of thousands of children suffer preventable health problems and die preventable deaths.
Follow me beneath the fold to read what Child Killer Bush said about our children, and what the facts are behind his intentional lies and distortions.
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 3, 2007Message to the House of Representatives
TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 976, the “Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007,” because this legislation would move health care in this country in the wrong direction.
Wrong direction
Bush projects and consistently means the opposite of what he says. Passing SCHIP is the right direction for getting millions more of Americans’ children the necessary and affordable health care and prevention services so that they can be healthy enough to attend school, to be able to concentrate and to learn, to be able to grow and develop normally, and that they be kept free of communicable disease and preventable health problems.
The only wrong direction is Bush’s direction – feeding the health insurance industry while starving the citizens of needed health CARE.
The original purpose of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was to help children whose families cannot afford private health insurance, but do not qualify for Medicaid, to get the coverage they need. My Administration strongly supports reauthorization of SCHIP. That is why I proposed last February a 20 percent increase in funding for the program over 5 years.
This bill would shift SCHIP away from its original purpose and turn it into a program that would cover children from some families of four earning almost $83,000 a year. In addition, under this bill, government coverage would displace private health insurance for many children. If this bill were enacted, one out of every three children moving onto government coverage would be moving from private coverage. The bill also does not fully fund all its new spending, obscuring the true cost of the bill’s expansion of SCHIP, and it raises taxes on working Americans.
Lies, and more lies
That $83,000 number is a falsehood. It’s the percentage above poverty rate for a family of FOUR in NY which Bush already denied state approval. States are already suing because the cost of living varies so greatly that where that number may be sufficient for a family of four to purchase health INSURANCE (NOT CARE) affordably in a state such as South Dakota, it does NOT do so in New York or other areas with high costs of housing, food and transportation.
Those taxes Bush references are taxes on cigarettes. It has been demonstrated over and over again with sound research that increasing the cost of tobacco products is associated with a decrease in their use,as well as a decrease in their related health problems (mouth, larynx and esophageal cancer, and lung disease and cancer). That’s a double win.
And while a minority of children MIGHT move from private health INSURANCE coverage to SCHIP, that speaks to the woeful state of insurance companies delaying claims payment and arbitrarily denying claims, forcing children to get delayed care, if they get any at all. Parents aren’t stupid They know that insurance companies don’t serve any purpose of assuring health. Insurance companies are in the business of assuring maximum profits for investors and CEOs.
Congress does the will of we, the people
Because the Congress has chosen to send me a bill that moves our health care system in the wrong direction, I must veto it. I hope we can now work together to produce a good bill that puts poorer children first, that moves adults out of a program meant for children, and that does not abandon the bipartisan tradition that marked the enactment of SCHIP. Our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage, not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage.
GEORGE W. BUSH
George W. Bush Kills Children
Congress, with the OVERWHELMING mandate of we, the people, crafted a good piece of legislation that will cause millions of children to be protected from preventable health problems and will prevent deaths and suffering. It did nothing to even slightly impinge upon the monstrous and parasitic greed machine of the health INSURANCE industry.
Bush has a goal which deals entirely with health insurance, and which does nothing to provide health CARE. In fact that’s his greatest fear – that children might have health coverage for health care.
This president is anti-American in every conceivable way He is espousing anti-Christian values, and his point of view is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus – his “higher father” to whom he ascribes his counsel.
Bush is a moneychanger at the temple. His constituency is self-interest.
Children, from the time of their birth to their premature deaths from preventable diseases and from preventable wars, live precarious existences under Bush corporofascist oppression.
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Can’t stick around, but will read and respond as I can. You can always email me for a faster response or to get my cell #.
we use our tax dollars for health care (our tax dollars at work for us)
OR
we use our tax dollars to fill the coffers of Halliburton et al and make Iraq safe for 40-year oil leases and bomb iran because they want to work off the euro instead of the dollar
all because stupid republicans, who wanted tax breaks and easy money, voted for a man who has ruined our country and our economy
not to mention killing the structure and functionality of our government
i’m not too upset
this SUCKS!
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Children are dying of very preventable and treatable health problems. children of working parents. Children who are trying to attend school.
The deaths come from breathing contaminated air and having untreated lung disease. Children literally suffocate to death, wheezing and gasping for air that their lungs can’t process.
There was the well-documented case of the child who died from a brain abscess – all caused from a tooth that had abscessed, and no dentist could be found to provide the care (under Medicaid or via a public health clinic).
Children die of untreated influenza. They die of measles of mumps and of other treatable and preventable diseases. They die agonizing deaths from contaminated food, from lead poisoning, and from particulate and gaseous pollutants that are in toys, in food, in water and in the air.
They die of undiagnosed and untreated malnourishment. They die in ever increasing numbers as the profits of the insurance companies and third party health care payers skyrocket to obscene amounts.
I am not suprised. Bush alone could not do this. The unholy alliances between the corporations and the government hold all hostage. Anything that addresses the rights of people to not be held in this grip of greed for basic rights violates the apparently overriding law of profit. Incremental moves are fine but the powers that be need to address the basic question,(including the ‘healthcare’ industries) health is not a product, access to medicine and doctors should not be for profit or for only those who can afford such a ‘luxury’ it needs to be a universal right not a cash cow. Just as war for profit is insane, so is this no one seems willing to step up and address the issues which go beyond this bill. Only those who are able to pay the vig need apply the rest of us including children, go die, but not here in our fine hospital or with our aid.
Plain and simple.
The Banks made the rules for Bankruptcy and the Insurance companies write the rules for health care.
the Federal Poverty Level to set eligibility for SCHIP is the FPL is determined based on the price of food. Since health care costs tend to increase at a much faster rate than the price of food, people living above the FPL will find it increasingly difficult to purchase health care.