SCHIP - Why is this little bill so controversial? It isn’t a huge budget expenditure; it supports the Conservative Christian ideology of right to life for children (who have already been born); and it gives medical assistance to the most vulnerable of our nation’s citizens -- children.
And yet, the combined energy and money spent by Mr. Bush and his Party to defeat this bill would probably fund the whole of it. After fed up Representative Pete Stark created a hornet’s nest of vitriol when he stood up in Congress and demanded an answer to this question: Why can’t you find the tax money to fund SCHIP when you can find billions of tax money to make war? Not argued was the fact that if Mr. Bush had not required so much to fund his war in Iraq and had allowed these hard working taxpayers to keep more of their money to live on, SCHIP might not have been necessary.
Yes, Our hard earned money. Every cent the government budgets comes from our salaries, unless Mr. Bush has discovered some secret money tree that we don’t know about. So why shouldn’t we be able to have a say in how it’s spent? And the latest polls show that the citizens of the United States are behind this expenditure by their response to the Republican demand that Congressman Stark apologize for his remarks and 93% of the People said he should not. In a democratic country, that’s more than majority rule.
Democrats are now the majority, aren’t they? Didn’t we state loud and clear (in spite of voting irregularities in various states and precincts) that we were fed up with the Republican agenda? This inexpensive SCHIP bill represents more than just health care for children; it is the People’s line in the sand, their refusal to give way again, their challenge to the Bush political agenda, their statement that we don’t hold children’s health care hostage to a political agenda - that We don’t make war on children.
Or do we? Two families who were thankful for SCHIP that covered the medical expenses of their children did have war declared upon them. The family of Graeme and Gemma Frost were accused of ripping off the SCHIP system when two of their children were involved in a serious automobile accident that left them with medical problems they are still receiving therapy for. The family of Bethany Wilkerson, a bubbly two year old born with a heart condition that required expensive surgery, was also accused of ripping off the SCHIP system.
The absurd reasoning behind this accusation has been minutely examined but the reason the families were forced onto SCHIP was simply that they weren’t wealthy enough to pay the bills. The accusers conveniently forget that more than half of all bankruptcies are because of catastrophic medical costs when a member of a family becomes ill. Would Republican critics really have prefered that the Frost family sell everything they own and become homeless to pay for their children’s medical care rather than accept help from SCHIP?
The reasoning behind the criticism of the Wilkerson family was that they made "wrong choices" by having Bethany knowing that they had a lousy insurance program. This judgment coming from the "pro-life, antiabortion" Republican party? However, the Wilkersons have publicly states that they might have been able to afford the high premiums for health insurance for Bethany except the insurance companies would not insure Bethany because of her pre existing condition. Shades of SICKO!
And the piece de resistance to the whole mess was when the media began reporting that some (unidentified) members of the Republican party thought that both families made the "wrong economic choices" in their of jobs and their lives. This, coming from a House and Senate filled with millionaires, many - like Mr. Bush - living off inheritances from their ancestors. It appears to be more an accident of birth than a matter of choice. Neither family was blessed with a sure fire "legacy" education or the luxury of wealthy friends to bail out failing businesses and provide baseball clubs for them to run. Instead of admiring their tenacity in the face of adversity, they condemn them while being provided with the best insurance in the U. S., paid in part by the Frost’s and the Wilkerson’s tax dollars.
So while Mr. Bush and his loyal followers work up a good case of apoplexy over Congressman Stark’s statement, we who pay their salaries (and health insurance) see things differently. We see 156 obstructionists who vetoed SCHIP as "too expensive" while not demanding an answer to where the money for the Iraq war is coming from?
Of those 156 nays, only two Democrats voted against overriding the veto, Representative Jim Marshall - Georgia and Representative Gene Taylor - Mississippi. Among those 154 Republican nays it only needed 13 willing to risk their "political careers" to provide for the children. Most of these 154 were behind spending billions to invade Iraq without one question as to whether or not we could afford that war when we had just been crippled by bin Lauden whose stronghold was in Afghanistan. Republicans can call Representative Stark any names they want, their words aren’t going to break any bones but defeating SCHIP could end up harming children like Graeme, Gemma and Bethany who don’t have the health care benefit those 156 lucky congressmen who voted "Nay".