The irony of the last couple of weeks is that the debate over the State’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) was supposed to be one of the easy ones. Way back in July, the WaPo’s Christopher Lee noted, “If anything looked like a sure thing in the new Congress, it was that lawmakers would renew, and probably expand, the popular, decade-old State Children’s Health Insurance Program before it expires this year.” It was a no-brainer — who was going to balk at an established, successful program that offers health insurance for kids?
Dems and Republicans reached a compromise version, which drew praise from governors, the medical community, and children’s advocates. Of all the bills likely to spark a political war, this was going to be at the bottom of the list.
And yet, here we are. S-CHIP garnered an inexplicable veto, the right is smearing a 12-year-old kid and his family, and Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee are issuing breathtaking press releases like this one.
Republican Senate hopeful Montgomery Burns today joined with Mayor Joe Quimby, D-Springfield, to support the Senate’s gazillion-dollar SCHIP bill.
“If the poor children can get a piece of the action, why can’t I?” explained Burns at a MoveOn.org rally in Capital City. “The little darlings are needy? Me, too. I need somebody to pay. Quimby here says he knows a bunch of low-income nobodies who are ripe for the picking. Excellent.”
“You need this?” wondered the mayor. “Well, why not. I’ve got needs, too. Why, I’ve got 27 paternity suits pending and to quote the Speaker, ‘suffer the little children.’ The Quimby Compound is overflowing with those little sufferers. Vote Quimby.”
Inexplicably, the mayor then leaned toward a comely MoveOn organizer and whispered in her ear, “Ah, if anyone asks, you’re my niece from out of town and you don’t get SCHIP.”
“But Uncle Joe, I am your niece from out of town, and I do get SCHIP.”
It actually gets worse from there, including multiple references to “rental children.”
The Republican committee staff added a tongue-in-cheek disclaimer at the bottom of this inanity that read, “Actual facts and events may vary, but really, how much?”
Atrios, responding to all of this, explained; “Republicans: Their brains just aren’t wired up quite right.”
What’s more, Bill Scher speculates that maybe the Energy and Commerce Committee GOP’s site got hacked — someone is trying to make them appear more foolish than they are — after noting, “If you thought conservatives hit rockbottom attacking a 12-year-old and his parents on children’s health insurance, you failed to consider what comical depths they could still reach.”
Seriously, go take a look at this remarkable foolishness and tell me why anyone should take House Republicans seriously on matters of public policy. How is good-faith discussion about helping low-income families provide medical care to children even possible when this is what passes for discourse in some far-right circles?
There’s just something wrong with these people.