NEWS: Democrats And Republicans Hit New Lows; Not Surprisingly, Republicans Lower

POLITICS: Democrats And Republicans Hit New Lows; Not Surprisingly, Republicans Lower

Politics in this country is a sick, sick beast. Every day we fall lower into a cesspool, every day we close our ears in disbelief to the utter utter mess that Washington thrusts about us like titties at a strip club. Politics have been stuck and bled like a Memphis hooker, stripped of dignity, whored to the highest bidder, and made a public mockery of consistently for almost three decades now. Yes, everything is Reagan's fault, and if you disagree with me, you are wrong.

Today's example comes in the form of SCHIP, or S-chip, because we here in American politics like to spruce everything up by giving it hip nicknames. And you can call it "schip" if you want, and be a fucking Kraut, or you can be with it and call it S-chip, the P-Diddy of the children's health insurance world. Nigga.

For those of you who missed Stephen Colbert's acute summary of the issue, it is as follows, convoluted as it may be:

Essentially, the new improved S-Chippy is a Medicaid-based program to provide free health insurance for "lower middle class" (a bullshit phrase if there ever was one) children who just barely don't qualify for Medicaid. Yes, they are poor, no matter what pundits say. Aside from being a spectacular idea, if passed, the S-chip initiative would also be a way to ease into some of the more radical (and I use that term loosely) universal health care programs that are being expounded by the Democratic Presidential candidates. (For the record, vote Edwards.)

Much of the opposition to free health insurance is based on the Reaganomical assumption that people - namely poor people, homeless people, black people, and the uninsured - are responsible for their own states of being, and that the modern United States government should take a policy of outdated Social Darwinism towards them, despite the fact that Social Darwinism hasn't been legitimate since the late 1800s. These people are fucking idiots. The issue is more complex than that. And the sheer volume of uninsured Americans suggests that a hands-off approach by the government has never worked, especially since the government has given no incentive for these people to pull themselves out of their terminal state in the first place.

Not to mention the fact that these are children. Not working adults. Who should be responsible for insuring them? If you said "their parents" then you deserve a quick chop to the throat because you weren't paying attention. If a parent can't even insure him or herself, how in god's name can they insure their children, who by basic nature accumulate far higher medical bills than adults do?

Now that we've shown that free health care for kids is an exceptional idea, we can move on, because the rest of the article depends on us finding that notion inscrutably important. And if you don't think it's important? Well, that makes you a child killer and probably a rapist. I have Chris Hansen on speed dial, so shut your fucking mouths, K?

Congressional Democrats, in one of their few successes since taking control of the Hill, have decided to address the issue, and that's where Puff Chippy comes in. Conceived by the Congress of the 1990s (having been enacted in 1997), which, it should be noted, was controlled by the Republicans, it is a measure to provide free health care to all children who live within a certain income bracket. Under the old plan, that income bracket was essentially Medicaid. Under the new proposal, the ceiling has been extended - adding about four million eligible children to the old total of 6.6 million. (Unfortunately, the funding for this expansion comes from an increase in the cigarette tax, which is overwhelmingly paid by the lower-to-middle classes over the wealthy, and is strike one against the Democrats, though certainly not their low point - we'll get to that later.)

Taxation aside, raising the ceiling is a fantastic idea, because Medicaid has a very low ceiling, and more families than those who make $20,000 per year (the poverty ceiling for a family of four) have difficulty affording their lives. Unfortunately for the Republicans, Bush doesn't think so.

"Policies of the government ought to be to help poor children, and to focus on poor children," he insightfully philosophizes, a rather intelligent thing to come out of the mind of this stagnant retard. But then he continues: "And the policies of the government ought to be to help people find private insurance, not federal coverage."

Unfortunately for that fucking moron, his government has done absolutely nothing to enable the poor to find their own private insurance. The income gap between the rich and the poor has reached historic levels during his presidency.

Tell me, George, how will low-income people ever have enough to insure themselves when their share of the gross income of the United States is at its lowest point of the modern age? And then there are his infamous tax cuts, well documented on this site among other places, which grant tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans while leaving the burden on the poor at the same level. Talk about "helping people find private insurance." Because if there's one way to get poor people insured, it's to not do anything to help them.

That is strike one against the Republicans. The utter failing for the poor of this country, whom they claim to represent, and who vote for them in drones. It's certainly not their low point - that's coming up - and it's definitely nothing new.

They, as expected, relied on Bush to veto the proposal, and he certainly did.

Though he may be vehement now in his own defense (as evidenced in the video linked above), if there's one thing history has shown us, it is that actions speak louder than words. He did it "quietly." No TV cameras. No press conference. It's almost as though he didn't want anyone to know what he was doing. It's almost as though he felt ashamed.

Unfortunately for the House Democrats, the margin with which the bill was passed, 265-159, is not a large enough majority to override a Presidential veto, and so the possibility of the program taking effect is fading rapidly.

And so the Democrats have pulled out all the stops, and have, in their attempt to sway the necessary number of Red Staters, brought the issue of poor kids full in the face of the Republican Party, thereby administered the largest guilt trip since George Washington cut down the cherry tree. And the twisted tale that follows can only be described as a national political low.

The Democrats, in their infinite wisdom, wrangled themselves a sick kid, a twelve-year-old boy named G----- F---- (I refuse to print his name here, because I am not a heartless bastard, though if you want it, it's all over the links), and exploited his existence on a scale perhaps larger than Dannielynn Smith - nah, nothing is. They had this young, naive 12-year-old give a response to Bush - on the radio - nationally. They didn't have this boy, say, have face-to-face talks with Republican leaders behind closed doors. They paraded him around the entire country, like a midget in a freak show, to achieve their own political ends. That, my friends, is a low point.

But it's not the low point - oh no. Not by a long shot.

That honor goes to the Republicans, who snapped at the bait like hungry walleyes and instantly mounted a mudslinging campaign - not against the Democrats, but against the 12-year-old boy.

It's bad enough to throw dirt at political candidates. They are adults. They can take care of themselves. But this is a child. A fucking prepubescent boy. And they're attacking him. The boy! It's the equivalent of a fully-grown man walking onto an elementary school playground and taunting a kid with braces, then subsequently taking his lunch money. "Not needy enough"? You've got to be fucking kidding me.

(For the record, if you still do not think that the "conservative bloggers" do not represent the opinions of the Republican Party, then you are ignorant and should not comment on this piece at all.)

And in its weird, sick, and twisted way, it has become emblematic of their policy toward the Notorious C.H.I.P expansion in the first place. What they're doing to poor G----- is no different than what they're doing to the four million other children whom the expansion would aid. Telling them they're not deserving enough. Taking away their means. In a way, dooming them to additional pain and suffering because Republicans are the ultimate moral authority in this country, wink wink, and they determine, I guess, who deserves to live and who deserves to die. And poor G-----, like four million other kids, just isn't poor enough to deserve their aid, and not rich enough to deserve their respect.

Take them both behind the shed and shoot them. Never before has there been a situation more emblematic of the utter dogshit that has become the once-venerable insitution of American democracy. Leave it to ChipPac to remind us all of the change that is needed so desperately.

Formus thinks every child in America should be insured, god damn it, and every adult too. Also, for any NSA spies that may be reading this, he was being facecious when he suggested we shoot the Congress. He only meant with a high-grade horse tranquilizer, that's all.

Stop! Stop! Stop! I am so fucking depressed.

As long as their are health insurance companies there will never be national healthcare.

The Republicans could have attacked the Democrats, if they felt using a 12 year-old was bad style. Instead, they went for the family, and got enough attacks wrong, that I would consider their points 'lying'.

It won't pass unless there is enough votes to override the veto. Going apeshit over incorrect facts smacks of desperation. The desperation of seeing this bill come up every 6 months, the noose tightening around (their) necks, while the Republicans in Congress protect a lame duck who they don't want to even mention.

Here - a Canadian company that offers health insurance.
link.

Going to try to tell me Canada doesn't have national health care?

The House and Senate sent a bill which would greatly expand the SCHIP program to the President. As promised, the President vetoed the bill.

For the George Bush, Dick Cheney, and All Republicans are the Embodiment of Pure Evil (GBDCAARATEOPE) crowd, this means that Republicans hate children and want to ensure that healthcare in this country is reserved only for those that can afford it (rich, white people) and that the rest of you can just go to hell.

Unfortunately, as with most of the posts on SG made by the GBDCAARATEOPE crowd, the facts and details of this situation have been left out so that we can simply bash and defame those with whom we disagree (As a side note - I am fascinated by the degree to which others in society are vilified on this site simply because they don't toe the leftist GBDCAARATEOPE line - this from a group of people who supposedly encourage individualism and tolerance).

The fact is, the original CHIP program was adopted in 1997 having been a bipartisan effort supported by President Bill Clinton and the Republicans that controlled Congress at the time. The idea was to provide health insurance to children whose families are too poor to afford the premiums on their own, but make too much to qualify for coverage under Medicaid. The program covers young Americans up to the age of 18 with a family income of not more than twice the official poverty level.

According to the Department of Health & Human Services, a family of four was deemed living at the poverty level if it had an annual income of not more than $20,650. That level of income for a family of four would qualify as poverty in 2007 under any fair assessment. Officials in the Bush administration agreed that these numbers needed to be adjusted and the program expanded so that the original targets for support could obtain the healthcare coverage that was needed. No one on the Hill or at the White House argued the notion that the last 10 years had changed the parameters of the debate and that the legislation needed to be revised. So, negotiations were initiated between the administration and Congress to hammer out the details.

This is where the fun began. The Democrats suggested that the new legislation raise the income level for a child to qualify to $83,000 - FOUR times the poverty level (at least in New York) which is an income stretching the definition of "poverty" to the point of snapping. Not only that, but the Democrats' bill redefines a "child" as someone up to age 25, stretching the definition of "child" to well, you know, complete fantasy

There may be people who believe that if you can't afford health insurance for your kids, that's just too bad, but I am not one of them. The kids didn't ask to be born - and they certainly did not ask to be born into a family earning just 200% of the poverty level. But of course, the Popular Press (and the GBDCAARATEOPE crowd) has joined with its allies in the Democratic Party to portray President Bush as being anti-child, anti-healthcare, anti-government support of those in need, blah, blah, blah. The Washington Post's Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman led their piece by saying:

President Bush yesterday vetoed a $35 billion expansion of a popular children's health insurance program, a move that left him as politically isolated as he has ever been and had even Republican allies questioning his hard-line strategy.

President Bush made it clear, on multiple occasions, personally and through he staff, that he wanted Congress to send him a re-authorized program which he could sign, but Democrats sent up a bill which the White House had warned was veto-bait.

Why?

So that could establish the parameters for this very discussion:

Bush (who along with Dick Cheney and all Republicans are the Embodiment of Pure Evil) will argue in favor of tax cuts for the rich, while he vetoes health care for poor children.

I know its hard for the Popular Press and the GBDCAARATEOPE crowd to accept this, but the reality of the situation is this:

Congressional Democrats were willing to trade the health of children to score political points against the President.

It is also true that if they can expand coverage to families up to 400% of the poverty line and individuals up to the age of 25, Democrats can go to 800% of poverty ($160,000 per year) and individuals up to 65 (when Medicare kicks in).

Hello National Health Insurance.

I read a quote in the New York Times which said that for many - if not most - Republican primary voters, this expansion of the SCHIP program proposed by the Democrats was not a step down the slippery slope of national health care - it was a four man bobsled on an Olympic run.

Ok let me be more specific, this is my fault for not doing so. I was implying that as long as there are insurance companies in the US who can lobby and buy politicians then we will be very hard pressed to get nationalized healthcare of any kind because it would not be in the best interests of the insurance companies. That and you need to get past the beliefs on both sides, one that private is better, and on the other that socialized is better. Neither if these is true, a mixed system that offers people the choice to pay for healthcare to get faster service as well as socialized healthcare would probably be the best compromise. The Canadian system (My roommate is Canadian so I know how it works) altho they will eventually get around to helping you, unless your in critical danger you can wait for days for things that should be taken care of immediately. Case in point broken bones need to be set as soon as possible but it's possible that you may have to wait for days to get help in Canada. Their healthcare is underfunded for what it needs to be able to do.

I'm glad at least it's not an important issue that you would use to make otherwise inappropriate attempts at humor with. Or something.

Yes, politicians and our current government are shitty. The healthcare system is shitty. Bush is a cockhole.

But a word of advice- this line

should not be there, whether it's true or not. That's the kind of shit that comes out of pundit's mouths, and appeal to the base instincts of ignorant masses. I'm smarter than that, and I'm guessing you are too.
Please try not to insult either of our intelligences.

Not only that, we won't get universal healthcare until one or more groups decides to eat their currently profitable business model for government provided healthcare. This could possibly include doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, drug companies.

These people all make lots of money off of healthcare, and personally speaking, I think they should be allowed to. They all incur major costs to be able to do what they do, and the supply is limited due to heavy government regulation. And for some reason, I don't forsee the government paying whatever these groups charge for service (as that is not the way it has worked in any universal system to date)

Don't worry, DucksAreCrazy, I promise I'll spend the rest of my life trying to appease you, darling. Smoochie smoochie!

Could it perhaps have been some kind of parody of punditry? Jesus god almighty, holy fuck, see, you never thought of that!

"even alleged the counters in their kitchen to be granite"

That's scary. Are Republicans looking into kid's windows?

In a word: yes.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

Yeah well, my father-in-law is American, so I know all about how it works down there. What a ridiculous thing to say. It's not your fault for not being specific, it's your fault for not knowing what you are talking about.

Actually, we don't "wait for days" for any type of health care in Canada. If you are in the ER with a broken arm, yes, you may have to wait until the guy that just came in with a near-fatal heart attack is finished, but you will be dealt with within hours. That is called "triage" and it is the way health care should be dealt with. Should the guy with the near-fatal heart attack have to wait until you are done getting your broken arm fixed, because you have more money than him? I have never met anyone who has had to "wait for days" for anything, and a majority of my family lives in Toronto, where the waits are the longest. I have relatives with cancer, a relative with spina bifida, a relative that had to have numerous surgeries on her intestines... none of them had any problems getting treatment. You may have to wait for elective surgeries, yes. You may have to wait longer in the ER for non-life-threatening ailments, yes. But that is the way it should be, so where is the problem?

I really hate when people who don't even live in Canada try and explain our health care system to me.

BTW, we do have health insurance companies up here, too. And real houses! We aren't forced to live in igloos anymore.

*****************************************************************************
Hey Formus, don't hold it in, man. It's not healthy. Tell us how you really feel!

I LOVE SALLY STRUTHERS! YOU HEAR THAT WORLD? I LOVE SALLY STRUTHERS!

God almighty that felt good. You were right.

Funny because thats EXACTLY how she explained it to me and her mother works in medicine. Wow way to make it sound as if I attacked you and your system, and the living conditions there. I did not I simply stated what I have been told about the Canadian system by your fellow Canadians. You don't like it take it up with them seeing as how thats a pretty good way to gauge how the system works.

I suppose this never happens either.

ok, jpaul256 , I'm going to make a couple of assumptions about you based on your argument and your profile, I apologize in advance if I'm wrong. You're listed as single, 39, and in IT. You probably make decent money and have no one to spend it on other than yourself. Being a young married person (and before that a young person in college) I'd like to give a dissenting view.
Expanding to cover people up to the age of 25 is focused on the fact that the government wants your parents' income until you are 25 for the purpose of grants and student loans. Also many current insurance plans already do this, so it isn't that far-fetched to have this included in a government program. The number of jobs you can take that are part-time or are available during the off-hours that have insurance are very low for people who are attempting to go to college. Even if you can get one (usually by working somewhere for 3-6 months or a year if you are part time), it costs a significant portion of your already small paycheck to be covered.
To cover the other portion you were upset about: $82,000 seems like a lot of money. But in a family of four that is two wage earners at $40,000 and two children. Children are insanely expensive to feed, cloth, find daycare for, buy school supplies for, entertain, etc. For a family of four insurance would run somewhere around $8,000 a year, plus an additional $2,200 deductible. And that is cheap, we aren't going to cover everything, style insurance (I know, I sold the crap for awhile). Realistically a family of four is spending about $10-15k a year on health costs if they are taking good care of their children, getting all their shots, etc. God forbid someone breaks a bone, comes down with a mental illness, etc. ADD and depression are becoming more and more prevalent in children and the meds cost lots of money (which will put you over the limit on prescription meds most cheap insurances have, also many of those meds do not have a generic yet) and most health insurances limit you to very few mental health visits yearly.
While many of the families that would have been covered under this are already covered (89% whose parents make between $60k and $80k) it is not cheap for them to be covered The middle class carries a very heavy burden and this bill would have done much to alleviate that burden.
Edited to add:
This. It was only supposed to cover over $60,000, the $80,000 is what New York wanted to allow and was not included in the final bill.

Does anyone have access to the full text of the House Resolution? There seems to be some contention as to whether or not the requirement was raised to $80,000 for a household income of four. In the last article done by Bitch_PhD people were saying that it was a lie perpetuated by the right. Is this true or not?

Moreover, the one thing I'm really getting out of this is that the poverty level for a household of four needs to be raised from a $20,000. Shit, two years ago I was making $28,000 and was pretty much taking care of just me and my girlfriend. We had to share an apartment with another girl and were living paycheck to paycheck. I can't even begin to imagine taking care of two children in addition on $8,000 less. It's ridiculous.

First, I appreciate your post. It was a thoughtful and respectful response to my opinion based upon your own life and experiences. I think we need more of that on this forum as well as in the world at large.

As for my background, let me expand on my profile. I grew up very middle class outside of Atlanta. My father was a firefighter and my Mom stayed at home. I am one of four kids and my father made it clear at an early age that we were going to have to shoulder the burden of paying for college if we wanted a degree (it just wasn't possible for him to send four kids to college on a firefighter's salary). So, I have never gone to school without also working part or full-time jobs.

Well, during my senior year, I was caught without health insurance and had an appendicitis attack and a subsequent staff infection. I found myself fully recovered an owed $15,000. Not fun.

Long story short, I have worked in healthcare my entire life, but on the IT side and as a researcher. I now have my PhD in genetics and work as a researcher at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Prior to that, I worked on the IT side in both commercial and government healthcare focusing specifically on Medicare and Medicaid.

The bottom line is that the way in which we deliver and fund healthcare in this country is broken and needs to be fixed. And while you and I can argue the finer points, my primary purpose in talking about the CHIP program was this:

The Democrats had a chance to work with the Bush administration to update and expand the CHIP program and they chose politics instead. It was more important for them to be able to make George Bush bad and wrong that it was to revise and expand the CHIP program so that kids get the care that they need.

Let me be clear, the Republicans might have done the very same thing if the tables were turned. And that would have been equally as wrong.

My state of mind is such that I am tired of these games in general and would like to be part of a movement where people come together out of a sense of respect and purpose to make the world a better place and that those efforts be based on a critical evaluation of facts.

The Republicans are not all bad. The Democrats are not all good. They are organizations of HUMANS that incorporate the depth and breadth of humanity.

Are you kidding me? There are 233 democrats and 202 Republicans in the House, but the bill passed 265-139. 32 Republicans broke ranks for the SCHIP expansion bill and 31 didn't even vote on it. That's almost a third of the party's numbers in the House. It wasn't straight-partyline; it was endorsed bipartisanly by many politicians. How is that playing politics? Bush may have said, "Oh, if they had found a better way to fund it, I wouldn't veto it," in order to make it seem like he's being singled out, but what funding would that be? He's given no ideas. What tax would he increase to fund it? "Choosing politics"; that's bullshit.

I think he means parading around the kid in regards to "choosing politics."

Great article though, I look forward to seeing more. There's really nothing I can add to the discussion here that hasn't been covered yet, so rock on and write more.

I'm gonna disagree on the point you're making that it was just a political ploy to make Bush look bad. My point was that the bill would actually be helpful to everyone it was intended for (which was the people making up to $60,000 with 2 kids). As far as crying over how it would be funded, I don't know, how about we go with some local contractors and local labor instead of paying out the ass to KBR in Iraq?
Oh wait, that would mean that our dear vice president's stock wouldn't go up as much. (Sorry, had to...after all I repressed a good one about GWB in the beginning).

I agree , it's extremely poor taste . And he was once zotted , if I am not mistaken .

No, I wasn't kidding you.

It isn't easy to vote against a bill related to healthcare for children and then go back to your state or district and explain the vote. So, for a Republican to vote for the bill, knowing that the President was going to veto it, was a win-win situation for those in Congress.