{"id":11582,"date":"2007-07-25T11:17:58","date_gmt":"2007-07-25T15:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11582.html"},"modified":"2007-07-25T11:17:58","modified_gmt":"2007-07-25T15:17:58","slug":"gop-leaders-join-bush-is-opposing-childrens-healthcare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/gop-leaders-join-bush-is-opposing-childrens-healthcare\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP leaders join Bush in opposing children’s healthcare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just 11 days ago, the WaPo’s Christopher Lee noted<\/a>, “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’s a no-brainer, right? Who’s going to balk at an established, successful program that offers health insurance for kids?<\/p>\n

Well, first the president balked<\/a>, saying expanding healthcare access for children in middle-class families ran counter to his ideology, and he would therefore veto the bill. As recently as three days ago, the LA Times reported<\/a> that bipartisan support for S-CHIP expansion was so strong, proponents of the bill believed they could likely override a veto.<\/p>\n

Not anymore. As part of a reminder of why congressional Republicans lost their majorities, a handful of top GOP leaders have decided to align themselves with Bush<\/a> and against healthcare for children.<\/p>\n

Republican leaders of the House and Senate on Tuesday attacked proposals that call for a major expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, to be financed with higher tobacco taxes.<\/p>\n

“Republicans will fight these proposals,” said the House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio.<\/p>\n

In an unexpected turn of events, the top two Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Trent Lott of Mississippi, said they opposed a bipartisan bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved last week and would offer an alternative on the Senate floor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Boehner’s quote was quite a gem: “Dragging people out of private health insurance to put them into a government-run program is ‘Hillary care’ come back.”<\/p>\n

Now, I suspect Boehner knows how dumb this is, but just for the fun of it, let’s unpack it a bit.
\n
\nThe House Minority Leader is worried about people being “dragged” out of a private system and into a public system. But no one’s being dragged to or from anything — it would be a competitive marketplace. The GOP loves competition, right? Middle-class families with children would only give up on a private plan if they thought a public plan would better suit their needs.<\/p>\n

In other words, a family might find that a public healthcare plan offered better care for less money and decide, “You know, maybe this isn’t such a bad idea.” But that’s not “dragging,” it’s offering an alternative. Boehner is apparently worried that his preferred approach might lose. I can’t imagine why.<\/p>\n

So, what is it, exactly, that Boehner is whining about? He either a) doesn’t know what he’s talking about; b) puts ideology over children’s health; or c) callously wants to deny Dems a legislative victory, even at the expense of healthy kids. (Or, I suppose, d) some combination thereof.)<\/p>\n

House Dems seem to have their suspicions about which explanation is the right one.<\/p>\n

Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, a leading proponent of the House bill, said: “For the longest time, I was mystified why Republicans would oppose expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program to kids who are eligible but not enrolled. Now I realize. They are trying to deny us a political victory. They want to be able to say that Democrats can’t get anything done.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately,” Ms. DeGette said, “Republicans are pursuing this strategy on the backs of poor children.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They are a shameless right-wing bunch, aren’t they?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just 11 days ago, 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’s a no-brainer, right? Who’s going to balk at an established, successful program […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}