Sorry to keep bringing it up - SCHIP

I found this website while trying to look up some more info and thought I'd share it.

http://www.ncsl.org/print/health/CRSSbyS0807.pdf

I'm now thoroughly confused on the arguments against expanding it.  It does require proof of citizenship (states responsibility to document), so I'm not quite sure how that means it will allow illegal immigrants access - at least any more access than they already have to medicaid - however they get it.  It also seems to state that the limit on income will be determined by the states - which would somewhat answer the question I posted below.  I've heard interviews on television with those against the expansion quoting the $88,000 limit.  (which I did not see mentioned, but I certainly have no idea what's discussed in Congress).  As I said below, for a family whose living expenses are relatively low, $88,000 is a lot of money, but for a family who lives where the living expenses are insanely high, $88,000 does not go as far. 

Observer, or any others, have  you found a site that explains why some are against it? 

• Sorry to keep bringing it up - SCHIP - DW
  • I found several opposition articles and will post the high points.... - Observer
    • My conclusion - DW
      • I would have to agree...... - Observer
  • Transcript: Democratic response to Pres. Bush's - radio address. (worth reading!) kam (sm)
    • Not asking you to defend ... just an fyi... - Observer
    • It's almost funny to me - DW
  • I have been reading up today...and will read more... - Observer
  • Just my feelings on it - Lifelong Democrat
    • Uh oh...LLD :-) see inside - Observer
    • I thought this article clarified the income issue - somewhat. (sm) kam
      • Thanks, your post - DW
    • I understand - DW
  • I should add.... - DW

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

11,000 million children will be covered.

The only problem is...they are raising the cigarette tax to $.61 a pack. According to Glenn Beck, we will need 21,000,000 NEW smokers to cover the program. Kinda ironic....use something that is unhealthy to give coverage to keep the kids healthy.

I don't know what they are thinking. I think the government has their heads in the sand.  Every time they tie a new program to smokers, more smokers quit. How are they ever going to cover all these children if another couple thousand people quit smoking?

I absolutely think this program will not work like they think and in a couple years, if not next year, they will be raising taxes on everyone because of the shortfall in the planned coverage.

Sheesh! How did these people ever complete college????? They have no sense.

Sorry, I'm still venting from the SCHIP garbage that was on today. They absolutely want to pass this immediately without looking at amendments, etc. They want an additional 11 million children covered ( nothing wrong with that) EXCEPT they want to put it on the smokers to pay for it. Now, with the way they are trying to get smokers to quit, I would think that's a stupid and absolutely wrong idea.

Like James Webb (NC) stated, "Do we really want an unhealthy habit to pay for a healthy habit?"What happens when the smokers quit because of all the taxes they have to pay to keep these programs going? Who is going to pay for it if every smoker quits? You have nothing to back it up. There would be a black hole and eventually, every citizen would have to pay for it.

I agree totally with his statements.  Why is it they expect an unhealthy habit to cover healthy habits? It makes no sense. At least this rep has his head together, yet the others don't think about the future costs.

When are the  American citizens going to wake up and start thinking for themselves? Why, oh why, do we keep voting in people who don't even think for themselves, just vote by party affiliation?

Glenn Beck stated we have to keep the phone lines to Washington and keep calling in to our reps to stop the nonsense (sp). I agree.

I watched the jerk put in the Senate by fellow voters from my state today and I had to turn him off  (I didn't vote for him-he knows nothing). I am going to write to the newspapers in that area and ask them WHY did they vote for him? Betcha my answer will be "He gave us so much money to get our projects done." "He's the son of our late governor." "He's from our area." That's no reason to vote for somebody. If it is, then I must be totally wrong for voting the way I do. I vote who I think will do the best job, not if he's from our area. That's part of  the problem with politics today.

I'll get off my  now. Thanks for reading. I promise no more venting today.

did not pass.It was 32 ayes to 65 nays.

All Things Considered, October 3, 2007 · President Bush has made good on his promise to veto a bill to expand a popular children's health insurance program, saying the bill could lead the nation toward a system of socialized medicine.

But backers of the measure, who are working to override the veto, say the president doesn't understand how the bill would actually work.

At issue is the State Children's Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP. It currently covers about 6 million children in families that earn too much to qualify for the Medicaid program for the poor, but not enough to afford their own, private health insurance. The bill the president vetoed would have added $35 billion to the program over the next five years — enough to cover about 10 million children total.

"I believe in private medicine," Bush told an audience in Lancaster, Penn., on Wednesday morning. "I believe in helping poor people, which was the intent of SCHIP, now being expanded beyond its initial intent. I also believe that the federal government should make it easier for people to afford private insurance. I don't want the federal government making decisions for doctors and customers."

Not Administered by the Government

But SCHIP isn't the kind of program where government officials make medical decisions. Under SCHIP, children are enrolled in private health insurance.

"Typically, children have a choice from among competing private health-insurance companies," says Stan Dorn, a senior research associate with the Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank. "There's no federally specified benefits package. There's no individual entitlement."

The president also complained that the bill would cover too many children who don't need federal help. "This program expands coverage, federal coverage, up to families earning $83,000 a year. That doesn't sound poor to me," the president told the Lancaster audience.

Dorn says that's not exactly right, either. "This bill would actually put new limits in place to keep states from going to very high-income levels. SCHIP money would no longer be available over 300 percent of the federal poverty level, which is about $60,000 for a family of four."

The president gets to make the $83,000 claim because New York had wanted to allow children in families with incomes up to four times the poverty level onto the program. That is, indeed, $82,600. The Department of Health and Human Services rejected New York's plan last month, and under the bill, that denial would stand. White House officials warn, however, that the bill would allow a future administration to grant New York's request.

Health Care Confusion for All

Still, Dorn says the real irony is that the bill, which was negotiated largely by Republicans in the Senate, goes a long way toward meeting the goals that Bush said he wanted for the program.

"It's limited the ability to go up the income scale. It's focused resources on the poorest uninsured kids. It's imposed new duties on states to prevent government funds from crowding out employer coverage," Dorn says.

In other words, the bill addresses all of the president's complaints, including his concern that families with private coverage now will drop it in favor of government-subsidized care.

But it's not just the president who is confused; Democrats are, too. Last week, at a news conference, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told the story of 12-year-old Deamonte Driver, the Maryland boy who died earlier this year after an untreated abscessed tooth turned into a brain infection.

"He had a toothache," Hoyer said, "but he didn't have health insurance, and his folks could not access dental care."

Actually, Deamonte Driver did have health insurance. He had Medicaid. His mother just couldn't find a dentist who would accept that Medicaid coverage — which is a whole different problem.

Meanwhile, Congress has continued funding for the SCHIP program through mid-November while the bigger battle plays out. A House override vote on the president's veto is now scheduled for Oct. 18.

Link to article:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14962685

I agree that the bill is a bit confusing, but I think it's great so many of us are actually looking into it to find out what it is really about.  I think the New York Times article below clarifies the income guidelines pretty well.  I also want to say that I heard that if we go with Bush's $5 billion plan for SCHIP it will be grossly underfunded, as apparently, it is already underfunded and many kids who qualify with the current income guidelines cannot get on SCHIP, so I hope he is willing to at least compromise and give more money to the program if his veto isn't overridden.  It's for a good cause, darn it!

"Oct. 16 — It is the $83,000 question: Could children with that amount of family income qualify for subsidized health insurance under the bipartisan bill passed by Congress and vetoed by President Bush?

When the House votes Thursday on whether to override the veto, Republicans will insist that the answer is yes. They will express outrage that rich children could get coverage from the government while hundreds of thousands of poor children still go uninsured.

Democrats say it is a total distortion for Mr. Bush and his Republican allies to say that the bill allows coverage with family incomes up to $83,000 a year.

Who is right? Each side appears to overstate its case. The bill does not encourage or prohibit coverage of children with family incomes at that level.

Of the 6.6 million children now covered by the program, most come from families with incomes well below $83,000, and the bill would give states financial incentives to sign up low-income children who are eligible but not enrolled.

In general, children with family incomes below the poverty level ($20,650 for a family of four) are eligible for Medicaid. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program is meant for families with too much income to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private insurance.

Mr. Bush said Monday that the bill would expand eligibility for the program up to $83,000.

But Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and an architect of the bill, said Tuesday that the president’s argument was specious. “About 92 percent of the kids will be under 200 percent of the poverty level,” Mr. Hatch said at a news conference with supporters of the bill, including the singer Paul Simon.

Another Republican author of the bill, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, said the White House claims were “flatly incorrect.”

States establish income limits for the child health program. A recent survey by the Congressional Research Service found that 32 states had set limits at twice the poverty level or less, while 17 states had limits from 220 percent to 300 percent of the poverty level. Only one state, New Jersey, has a higher limit. It offers coverage to children with family incomes up to 350 percent of the poverty level, or $72,275 for a family of four.

In New York, which covers children up to 250 percent of the poverty level, the Legislature this year passed a bill that would have raised the limit to 400 percent of the poverty level, or $82,600 for a family of four. The Bush administration rejected the proposal, saying it would have allowed the substitution of public coverage for private insurance.

States that cover middle-income children often charge premiums and co-payments on a sliding scale, so the coverage is not free.

While the bill passed by Congress would not prohibit states from setting the income limit at $82,600, it would set stringent new standards for such coverage.

In general, after Oct. 1, 2010, a state could not receive any federal money to cover children above 300 percent of the poverty level unless a vast majority of its low-income children — those at or below 200 percent of the poverty level — were already covered. To meet this test, a state would have to show that the proportion of its low-income children with insurance was at least equal to the average for the 10 states with the highest rates of coverage of low-income children.

Moreover, if a state was allowed to cover children over 300 percent of the poverty level, the federal payment for those children would, in most cases, be reduced. New Jersey and New York would be exempt from the cuts if they met the bill’s other requirements.

Citing that provision, the White House said Oct. 6 that the bill included a “grandfather clause” allowing higher payment rates for children above 300 percent of the poverty level in New Jersey and New York.

Jocelyn A. Guyer, a researcher at the Health Policy Institute of Georgetown University, said: “This is a wildly contentious political issue, but it’s largely a theoretical question. More than 99 percent of children in the program are below three times the poverty level, and New York is the only state that has expressed any interest in going to four times the poverty level.”

Suzanne Esterman, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Human Services, said that 3,000 of the 124,000 children in the state program — about 2.4 percent — had family incomes exceeding three times the poverty level.

Some of the current confusion can be traced back to a bill introduced in March by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, both Democrats. They would have explicitly allowed all states to expand eligibility to families making four times the poverty level. But the bill passed by Congress did not go that far." -by Robert Pear

because you STILL don't get it.  I don't care that Bristol is an unwed mother.  I don't care if the guy lived in Palin's house.  And no, I don't rule my kids with an iron fist -- unlike the religious right.  You have simply missed the point...AGAIN.

The whole point isn't that this stuff is happening.  Dems (of all people) know these things happen.  However, we are not the ones out there preaching abstinence (that doesn't work), spouting out about how terrible unwed mothers supposedly are, how homosexuals are just going straight to he11, and how you MUST be a murderer if you have an abortion.  YOU guys --- REPUBLICANS -- are the ones preaching that day and night, 24/7.  I can guarantee that if that had been a democrat who had done that the first thing out of your mouths would have been--- where was her father?  As in, insinuating that the mother (in this case Palin) would somehow be at fault because she didn't provide the proper guidance for her child.

And now after all those years of preaching that crap, who do you put up as a potential leader of this country?  The mother of an unwed pregnant teenager -- who Palin decided to flaunt all over the country, and who also obviously encouraged this boy to move in with her daughter -- as in, living in sin.

There is only one word for this:  Hypocrisy.  You do know that Palin cut funding in Alaska for benefits for unwed mothers?  Hmmm....

i wanted to bring this up from below because i want people to read it that are for abortion.  i want them to watch the video mentioned here.

into poverty, but you don't want the money it takes to care for these children to come out of your pocket????  Am I on the mark? 

Answer:  First of all, I wouldnt be forcing anyone to have a baby born into poverty.  That would be THEIR choice.  Yes, it is a CHOICE to get pregnant or not.  If you dont want to get pregnant you should use BIRTH CONTROL, given out FREE to anyone who cannot afford it.  Of course, you cannot actually shove it down someone's throat and make them swallow it, I guess.  Second, I already DO pay for these unwanted children.  It is called WELFARE. 

I guess this is another so-called way to sling mud at Obama.  The rich republicans can't have it both ways.  You either care for the unborn (welfare for their mothers) or you allow the mother the choice...  Which is it?

Answer:  First, I am not slinging mud at Obama.  I would be against abortion no matter who was running for office.  Second, I am not a rich republican but a poor democrat.  Sorry to dissappoint!  Third, I believe that education about birth control and sex should be funded more, there should be more support out there for teens on how to NOT GET PREGNANT in the first place.  Second, there are NO unwanted children in the world.  If the natural mother did not want the child, there should be, and I am sure there are, government funded programs to allow these girls to adopt out their babies to the MILLIONS of people who want to adopt.  Also, our government should help fund would be parents to be able to adopt w/o having to spend thousands of dollars to do it.  So that way people in the good ole' USA could adopt w/o having to go to third world countries to do it.  Another thing, the government should reevaluate their priorities in that it costs almost nothing to have an abortion and commit murder versus spending thousands on adoption.  Go figure that one!

Not all abortions are a form of birth control, ya' know.  I knew a very religious lady that aborted her child due to hydrocephalus.  The child would been born deformed/a vegetable.  This would have put this lady at high risk.  She prayed about it and soon after aborted the child.  She had to live with that. 

That is the child that God gave her.  I dont have all the answers about why that would be, but murder is still murder.  So does that mean because the baby was deformed that he was less of a baby, a human life?  Not our call to make.  As far as her having to live with that, this is true.  However, as a Christian, we also have to live with whoever we put into office.  They represent us, our beliefs.  We have to answer for who we give the power to.  We are all responsible. 

Not all situations are the same.  Furthermore, you can't force your child to have a baby or to have an abortion.  Either way, it's her body.

In the OT of the Bible God speaks about the children of Israel.  They were worshipping an idol and offering their children to it.  He spoke about innocent blood be shed and he was angered by it.  He speaks quite clearly that it is murder.  Also, if anyone supports abortion, I think they should go to the faith board and click on the post not for everyone and find the link in there to a video, copy and paste and watch what happens to an aborted fetus.  At 19 weeks what a baby looks like and see what happens to them when the are killed.  I mean, after all, if you can condone it, then you should be able to watch it.

At first we were told the outsourcing was to cut labor costs.  Only after this campaign rhetoric took hold did the issue of taxes come up.  Now I ask you, if the reason for outsourcing is taxes, what the heck?  Didn't Bush CUT taxes.

It seems that American people have lost the reasoning side of their collective brains.  When I quit working a few months ago I was making LESS than I made in the 80s.  How is that possible?  The cost of medical care has not gone down.  The cost of medical insurance has not gone down.  I posted some time ago about a local hospital that laid off their most experienced nurses, not a few of them, ALL of them, and hired new graduate nurses to replace them at lesser wages.  What was that about?  They got away with it though.  Anything to increase the bottom line profit.

This is true in every industry.  They like to blame labor for everything.  Well, how the heck can you buy a $2+ loaf of bread and $5 gallon of milk on minimum wage, ya know?  Take gasoline for example.  Sure it has gone down the last days but is it back where it was when oil was what?  $86 a barrel or whatever?  No and it never will be.

So that car you drive.........how much do you think of the price tag is labor? 

These things are what really aggravates me.  People just can't seem to use reasoning power any more.  I'll give you an example:  After my husband lost his job in the CF fiasco, he drove for awhile for a friend who owns a trucking company.  I went with him on a trip.  He picked up a load of beef in Boonesville, AR, hauled it to Chicago, no problem.  Then they sent him somewhere in Ohio to pick up a load of vinegar to take to Florida.  Got to Ohio and I forget the reason but he couldn't pick up the vinegar. Then he was sent (empty) to Logan (?), Kentucky where he picked up 40,000 pounds of chocolate covered doughnuts which he delivered to Phoenix.  In Phoenix they told him that most of that load would be routed back to Atlanta.  Now what kind of sense does that make?  Taxes the problem?  I would say poor management is a bigger problem than taxes OR labor.

I'm sorry about your dad's experience.  People used to do things like that.  I recall my late father-in-law, worked for the fire department in Fort Worth and he said during the depression they did the same thing, worked less so the ones with less seniority could keep a job.  They all suffered but they suffered together and somehow they all made it as did your parents.

I am just horrified at the apparent digress of intelligence in this country.  It seems people believe anything the news media or anyone else tells them.  Seems they have totally lost the ability to reason and God forbid that anyone should think of anyone other than themself.

All that said, feel free to go ahead and believe that companies are outsourcing jobs because of labor costs or taxes.  The unionized workers, under Reagan, started taking wage concessions, that is taking a DECREASE in pay to keep jobs.  How did that work?  Don't believe I've heard of any of the victims of outsourcing even being offered a pay cut to keep the jobs in this country.  Certainly not the Rheem plant in Fort Smith that the other day laid off the last 600 workers.  They sent most of their production to Mexico a few years ago.  Fort Smith they say is dying because of outsourcing.  Their reason?  They say, it's "labor costs."  Well, then, how is it that people can't afford to pay their bills with all the excessive wages they're supposedly receiving. Obviously the next in vogue EXCUSE will be that taxes are lower in other countries.  B.S.!!!!!!!

Took some looking, but found it.

o A $1,000 “Making Work Pay” Tax Credit. For 95 percent of workers and their families—150 million
workers overall—the “Making Work Pay” credit will provide a refundable tax cut of $500 for workers or
$1,000 for working couples. This credit will benefit over 15 million self employed workers and for 10
million low-income Americans, will completely eliminate their federal income taxes.
o A Refundable $4,000 American Opportunity Tax Credit. Barack Obama will provide a $4,000 fully refundable
tax credit to ensure that college is affordable for all American families. This credit will cover
100% of the first $4,000 of qualified tuition expenses, making community college essentially free and
covering about 2/3 of the cost of public 4-year college.iv
o A Universal 10% Mortgage Interest Tax Credit. Barack Obama will provide a 10% refundable credit to
offset mortgage interest payments and make homeownership more affordable for lower- and middle-income
families. This universal credit will provide an average tax cut of $500 to 10 million homeowners who do not itemize.

I see refundable in there a few times. And there you have the low income folks who will, with the help of this "credit," ELIMINATE their federal taxes. Who is going to take up that slack?

It only makes things worse, not better. The anger it causes with "outsiders" coming to that small town does not do any good. Let the people of that town alone. They're doing okay without outsiders stirring up trouble.

I'm not just talking about that town. It happens all over the USA. These groups get together and go to a town just to stir up trouble. I've seen it happen again and again. They have no right sticking their noses in where it doesn't belong. Let them protest in their own towns.

The KKK does this all the time, too. They don't get the press, though, and they shouldn't be sticking their noses in where it doesn't belong, either.

I'm proud to be a gun-toting, religious, redneck from PA, but we are not any more racist than any other state or person.

The O thinks we are all of the above, so why does he keep coming into the state to campaign? You would think he would fear us.  His buddy Murtha really blundered on his comment and now thinks an apology will smooth things over. If the O gets in, he will take our guns away and we will have no protection at all from criminals.  It's our constitutional right to own guns.

He's a glib talker but what is he really saying? He definitely can't smile or debate his way through the terrorists.

Rendel-D, our precious governor, ran our state into the ground with giving money away to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh mostly for convention centers and sports centers and now for casinos. Why?  He loves sports and gambling. When Rendel was mayor of Philadelphia, he almost bankrupt that city with his shenanigans.  I'm so glad his term will be over soon. Maybe then Pennsylvanians will be able to get back to work. Our roads are back to being #1 on the Worst Roads in the U.S. He made sure there would be no money for road construction.

He promised all kinds of tax cuts, property taxes mostly, if the bill passed for the casinos. That was a few years ago. Where's the cut? Our property taxes went up, not down! No rebates as he promised, but we have 20,000 (exaggeration) different ways to play the lotteries between instant tickets and 3 digit, 4 digit, 5 digit, 6 digits, power ball, etc.

Casey-D didn't do a good job for us, either. He made everyone who owned a service business (that was me back then) pay 6% sales tax on our earnings EXCEPT lawyers and doctors. I'm confused. Don't they provide a service? Sure they do. He also upped our taxes. His son, sad to say, is now a Senator. First he ran for another post and won, and before that term was up, he ran for Senator and won.  How can the people of of PA fall for this again? Just hearing him talk makes me sick.

Sorry, I don't buy the dems making a better life for us. They make it worse.

I will get off my soapbox now.

Obama told George Stephanopoulos at ABC News:

"We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our Constitution."

I'm sorry, but those being held at Gitmo are not citizens of the United States; therefore, are not entitled to any protection under the Constitution.  Why not say 'abide by the Geneva Convention'?  Even then, how many of our POWs were treated as outlined in the Geneva Convention?  Let's not forget, this is a war and these terrorists are POWs.  President Bush sought to protect the citizens of this country whatever the cost.  After the awful events of 9/11, it was his priority.  The world needs to know if you target the U.S. there are consequences. 

And I want to know where they are going to put these 250 or so terrorists?  I live 50 miles from Fort Leavenworth and that's a little too close for comfort for me.  I assume some will be released to return to their country where, of course, they will plot their next terrorist attack.  While others will be housed in federal facilities like Leavenworth and then what?  We sit them down for tea and crumpets and ask them nicely if they plan on blowing anything else up here in America? 

Spam, powdered milk (hated it), that awful yellow cheese (yuk), oatmeal for breakfast every day for a year, but we ate it. No choice.  Took me 30 years to be able to eat oatmeal.

DH's parents used to get canned beef. Don't know how they got that. We never did. He liked it.