Get Rid of S-CHIP Altogether
by Big Dog on Oct 19, 2007 at 21:28 Political
There was a big battle this past week after President Bush vetoed the huge expansion of the S-CHIP, a program designed to provide heath care coverage for the children of families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid and too little to afford private insurance. There were provisions that led us on the path to socialized medicine and they have been addressed so now I will focus on whether we need S-CHIP at all.
The argument made by those who support S-CHIP and its expansion is that people cannot afford 1200 dollars a month for insurance. We have to help the children and we have to help the poor. Now it has been shown that insurance can be obtained for around $500 a month but we can use the $1200 figure that the Democrats like to bounce around. I have come to the conclusion that we do not need the S-CHIP program and that it should be abolished because the poor can afford that amount of money. I have wondered about something for some time and Hillary Clinton’s supporters helped me to finally put the pieces together.
Let me explain. I have wondered how this country can be in the dire financial straights that the left likes to portray it. According to the left the economic numbers are bad and we have a terrible economy (despite numbers that are about the same as when the other Clinton held office). I knew this had to be wrong and I continually asked how it is that a country with such a bad economy could collectively donate so much money to political candidates. Look at the amount of money that has been donated to all of them combined and to Obama and Clinton in particular. How does a country with such a bad economy afford to give like this? Then I began to wonder about our poor and the S-CHIP.
My thoughts about S-CHIP started about the time the Hsu thing was breaking. In that story there were countless numbers of people who donated money to Hillary Clinton. These people donated $2300 despite circumstances that demonstrated that they should not have that kind of money to donate and yet they did! I mean, how could people who cannot afford $1200 for health insurance pony up $2300 for a candidate?
I thought it must be some kind of fluke but it evidently is not because today it was revealed that Hillary again received hundreds of thousands of dollars from people who make very little. This is the latest news:
Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers [sic] are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton’s campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser [sic] in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown. [LA Times]
The 2000 Census shows that the average annual income for that area is $21,000 or right at the poverty level. The Democrats, are pushing for an expansion of S-CHIP that would cover families that make three or four times the poverty level because they cannot afford the $1200 a month for private insurance. I think that the donations that Mr. Hsu collected from poor folks and the donations described in this article clearly show that people right at the poverty level certainly can afford health insurance premiums. Any individual or family that that has $1000-$2300 of disposable income to spend on a political donation can certainly afford to pay the measly cost of health insurance.
There will, of course, be skeptics who think I am way off base here and that I am once again bashing the poor because I am one of those cold hard Conservatives who does not care about anyone. People are entitled to that opinion but I offer this; there are only two explanations for these donations. The first is as I described and that people can afford them which means, as I stated, they can afford health care.
The second is that these are illegal donations to the Clinton campaign. Now I know that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid promised that this would be the most ethical and transparent Congress in history but that has not quite panned out and I also know that the Clinton’s have a long history of unethical and illegal behavior. However, Hillary will never admit to any wrong doing and her supporters and puppets in the media will not investigate or go after her for her ethical and criminal lapses even when video evidence of her illegal activities exists and has been introduced in court. There are a few folks in this story who say they did not donate and others who cannot be found, but it is unlikely the media will give this a real look. They have to protect mother Hillary.
Since they will not investigate, that only leaves us with the conclusion that poor people can afford their own health insurance. Unless of course Senator Clinton would like to refute that conclusion. So, having laid this all out I have this demand to make of Senator Clinton:
Either admit to your illegal behavior and withdraw from the presidential contest or introduce a bill to abolish S-CHIP. Either people need S-CHIP and you are a criminal or you are not a criminal and your poor donors, therefore, do not need the program.
The ball, as they say, is in your court Senator…
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Tags: chip program, Congress, Democrats, help the children, Hillary Clinton, Hsu, medicaid, Obama, political candidates, private insurance, socialized medicine
Why Fred Thompson should be elected…
Well, it is Friday again and that means it is Fun Friday here and also Open Trackback Weekend. I got this one from The OnionIf Elected, I Will Have The Hottest First Lady In U.S. History By Sen. Fred Thompson…
Not to mention the fact than neither the constitution nor any of the amendments authorize the federal government to fund health care at taxpayers expense in any way.
Abolish the S-CHIP program because it’s unconstitutional. If the people want a program like S-CHIP, let their states provide it. That power and authority IS still reserved to the states.
I think stepping back from these figures helps a little. Donating $1000 once is not the same as paying $1,200 a month for health insurance. That’s $14,400 a year…a lot different than even $2,300 donations. Still, even $500 is a significant chunk of take home pay. If these people were giving $500 a month every month to the Clinton campaign, you’d have a point.
That is a good point Adam but the point of the article is that Hillary is taking illegal donations. She is not getting them from the people that are listed and it is as illegal as her work with Peter Paul.
In other words, she must be taking illegal donations because it is obvious that these people are too poor to give the money reported.
Very good point Perri!!
Adam,
While donating 1000 once is not the same as 1200 a month (which is 700 more than one needs pay). You must admit that people at more than two times the poverty level should be able to pay for their own insurance and that it is not the job of government to provide it nor is it my responsibility to pay for it.
But it leads us back to the point that your candidate must be doing something illegal because there is no way that these people could afford this.
Even though more than 50% of the poor in this country are buying a home and around 70% have air conditioning and more than half have at least 1 TV and many 2, most 1 car and many 2, cell phones and cable, they still need help with insurance if they make 3 or 4 times poverty level.
Think about it another way. If you made 45,000 a year and actually took home 45,000 a year then you would have money to spend on these things. What people fail to understand is that government is a big household expense. Not for the poor but for those who make money. When the top quintile pays more taxes than the lower three quintiles there is something wrong.
But those are topics for another day. Hillary has serious ethical and legal issues. She committed felonies in the Peter Paul fiasco and is being protected by a judge hubby appointed. It is on video so there is no VRWC, she broke the law. Hsu is another mess. One would think the way Bubba took all that illegal Chinese money and the donation messes he had they would learn. I guess they did learn that they can break the law without worry.
Now she has gotten donations from people who say that they never gave the money. For a woman who said they were going to do a background check after Hsu, she sure is doing a poor job of it. This woman is Satan and she does not deserve to be president.
I won’t get into a discussion about the ethics of health care because that horse is pretty worn out between us.
Aside from your distaste for all things Clinton, the real issue here is bundling. Bundling is done by every major campaign and candidate in the race and has been for years now. Bush, for example, rode a wave of corporate cash through bundling in 2000 and 2004. How many of those people were legitimate and traceable donors? How many of those people could afford to donate under your standard? How many of those people were pressured into donating because of the nature of their job, etc., ? Nobody knows.
In this case Hillary Clinton is tapping regions previously ignored by candidates and using bundling to pull in funds from minorities and other poor people who typically would not donate to her campaign unless told to do so by their peers or their local leadership. Besides, there’s no crime in people spending money they technically can’t afford out of outright hope that the next president won’t treat minorities and poor people like trash.
Some of the cash is going to be shady of course. That is the nature and flaw of bundling. Campaigns have systems in place to at least appear to be monitoring these and sometimes things happen like in the case of Hsu. What I don’t understand about you constantly referencing Hsu is how Hsu is any more than just an embarrassment to the campaign as opposed to some kind of ethical problem. In my opinion, fault in the Clinton campaign goes no further than their stupid failure to notice one of their major donors was a criminal and to think gee maybe this wad of cash he gave us might be questionable.
My point? The two major parts of your argument here are flawed.
One, there is not one poor person giving the equivalent yearly cost of health care ($1200 or $500) to the Clinton Campaign so you cannot argue that their donations mean they can afford to buy their own health care for their children and that S-CHIP should be abolished.
Two, if you’re calling Clinton into question for the more shady elements of her bundling of poor folk financing, you’re going to have to call a lot more politicians into question as well, especially GWB who you voted for twice if I’m not mistaken.
I do not doubt that all politicians all bundle and of course there are problems with that. However, we have video tape evidence of Hillary braking the law with regard to campaign donations and we have years of Bill’s illegal donations. It would be easy to say it is OK for Hillary to do it because everyone else does except NO ONE else is constantly in the news as haviung broken the law or receiving questionable donations. Since the MSM is inherently liberal and they are all for anything anti Bush, they would have dug it up and plastered it all over.
The fact is, she was caught breaking the law and it is largely ignored. She promised to do background checks and that was not done and now we have people saying they were told what to do with their money or that money that was not theirs was donated in their name, a felony.
As for health care. Here is the bottom line. If you have any disposable income that you can give to a candidate then you do not need government assistance. I am tired of tax money going to people who have enough to do on their own.
I can show you where to get health care coverage for 400-500 a month. That is 4800-6000 a year. If you can afford 2000 for a candidate I can show you how to save the other money you need.
Cigs 1400 a year, cell phones 720 a year, cable 600 a year sell 45,000 car and get 15,000 car. There are many ways.
As for these people, they are already eligible for the S-CHIP. Some in COngress want to expand that to 3-4 times the poverty level. I am sorry but there is no way anyone can convince me that people in this category need the help. If they do, it is mismanagement on their part.
We can argue the ethics of health care but that, as you say, is dead. The unethical part is taking money from someone and using it for someone else. There is no guearantee for health care and I want to know what rule says that the wealthy need to pay for the poor, though in our country that is what happens now and nearly every program is flawed and expensive and not enumerated in the Constitution.
Let us put it another way. S-CHIP should not be free. If a family has 1000-2000 to donate to Clinton then they should have to pay for a part of the program. The reason we have a welfare class is because we have bred people to depend on government. Once they are at the teat they never want to come off.
This is the major explanation for inner city poverty. People gather where the services are and government gives them what they want. Like a drug, people become addicted to the freebies and never want to get further in life.
I cannot understand how anyone can espouse a system that makes people slaves to it. Politicians I understand, they are breeding their future generations of voters, people too stupid to see that the government (wither party) has never solved their problems and only made them worse.
How did our country survive before welfare and before legalized extortion (known as the tax system)? Why are countries that have high welfare rates and taxes filled with social problems?
We live in a country that gives over 200 million dollars to candidates each time they are running for office in the 4 year cycle. Surely we can afford some of our own expenses instead of relying on government.
BTW, FWIW I have no problem with S-CHIP as it currently stands. I am not for the expansion of the program.
“If a family has 1000-2000 to donate to Clinton then they should have to pay for a part of the program.”
Really in the end I see no connection to the people who donated to the Clinton campaign and S-CHIP anyway. I don’t know the exact number but I want to go out on a limb and say that if everybody taking advantage of S-CHIP donated to the Clinton campaign she’s be in great shape.
More on this later…I’m off to do some tax free shoping.
Since these folks in the story are folks making poverty level money, they would certainly be eligible for S-CHIP. Whether they use it or not is another story. Since people can afford to give so much to politicians there must be no real poverty.
Now you are talking. I drive to your state to shop to avoid the taxes in my state.
We need to do lunch one day…
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