Dodd vs. Bush: Battle Of The Healthcare Socialists by Doug Wrenn

Dodd vs. Bush: Battle Of The Healthcare Socialists

By Doug Wrenn

October 06, 2007

Healthcare's in the air, everywhere I look around; Healthcare's in the air, every sight and every sound…

Actually, John Paul Young was referring to love, not healthcare in his 1977 song, but you still get the gist.

While I don't necessarily recall there being all that much love in the air back in 1977, it seems that the proponents of socialized healthcare, from both sides of the ever-narrowing and once-defining political aisle, healthcare is very much in the air, now 30 years later in 2007.

Hillary Clinton is threatening a sequel to her previous debacle of a brainstorm many have since dubbed "Hillary-Care."

President Bush strong-armed Medicare prescription drug coverage through the Congress to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars (and growing) in an unfunded mandate that is guaranteed to overburden, if not crush at least the next two or more generations, and possibly also bankrupt our government, already besieged by mounting debt, fueled by reckless spending, so-called "free" trade shell games and the continued printing of worthless paper money more befitting a Monopoly game than our national treasury.

Yet this liberal President in conservative clothing fooled us all this time, when he pulled out his trusty but rusty veto pen from its holster, blew off the dust and cobwebs, and signed the abused expansion (originally intended to be just a renewal) of the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) into legislative death. This was only the fourth time this spendthrift President has ever exercised his veto power. Perhaps being a lame duck President with nothing more to lose other than a library and a legacy isn't so bad after all.

The President cited his reasons for the veto as being that he opposed the fact that too much of the bill would benefit families of higher incomes. Indeed, the bill extends coverage to "poor children" up to about age 24 and with about an $80,000 annual household income. Bush also explained that he believes that healthcare should be run by the private sector and not by the federal government. Given his previous and strenuous advocacy for Medicare prescription coverage, I would say this President is grossly "misunderestimated," to borrow his awkward parlance.

Connecticut's senior but not necessarily wiser senator, Chris Dodd, who has the intention, but not the funds to succeed President Bush in office, spoke out in opposition to the big fellow named George and his little pen named Veto. Apparently oblivious to the roughly 20 limited functions of government appropriation, as cited in Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, Connecticut's Senior Senatorial Socialist attacked the President's move, saying that Dubya's little penpal, Veto, would hurt many poor children, (as well as the included older, richer ones) in this unconstitutional and socialist boondoggle (that should never have existed in the first place), and was slated to be upped from covering four million mostly poor children, to 6.6 million children, including more from the middle class. As I would not expect the Senior Senatorial Socialist from the People's Equally Socialist Republic of Connecticut to be even remotely versed in the Constitution of the United States, I certainly would also not expect him to be a reader of the conservative newspaper, Human Events, which is a shame, because had Mr. Dodd read the September 24th issue, he wouldn't have as much reason to be as embarrassed as he does right now.

In his column, "SCHIP Expansion Could Prove Deadly," Mike Franc makes the case that despite a recent Census Bureau reporting that of the 5.7 million SCHIP eligible children, many are still not covered, and of the additional middle class children that proponents of the bill were seeking to reach out to, the "vast majority" of them are nevertheless already covered by other private plans from their parents.

An inquiring and reasonably prudent mind would also have to ponder why a program called "The State Children's Health Plan" is even funded by the federal government in the first place, and as usual with excessive federal government intervention, more in this case actually translates to less.

Franc addressed that issue as well. The Department of Health and Human Services denied SCHIP extended funds to families earning more than 250% above the federal poverty line until the respective states had already covered 95% of the kids originally targeted for the program. According to 2006 Census Bureau reports, 95% of the coverage standard is already attainable in 22 states. He expounded that such is already the case in a few specific examples, including Rhode Island, 98%, Wisconsin, 97.7%, Michigan, 96.8%, and yes, even the home state of the less than distinguished gentleman from the socialist side of the Senate, Connecticut, with 97.7%, presumably because of the state's "HUSKY" plan. (Wow, and to think that when I was a kid, "HUSKY" was only a clothing size for young little porkers who couldn't fit into a regular size!) Meanwhile, as Franc points out, the proposed expansion of SCHIP also denies coverage to genuinely poor children who cannot otherwise get covered when the allocation is wasted on kids from middle class homes, and even in the states with higher coverage, many kids significantly below the poverty level cannot attain coverage from this lopsided bureaucratic program. In New Jersey, a poorer state in terms of coverage, 10,000 additional middle class children would have potentially been added to the program, while 150,000 poor kids still lack coverage. Franc cited one case in Maryland in which a young boy with a toothache later died from a brain infection as a result of the untreated dental problem because of insufficient dentists participating in the plan, and the state quota already being filled.

President Bush is keeping an open mind and saying that he is willing to work with lawmakers on an improved version of the bill. The response of the Democrats right now is their pondering and posturing as to whether or not they have sufficient votes to override the President's veto.

Of course, this socialist utopian expansion was to be funded from increased discriminatory taxes on tobacco products, such as a 61-cent per pack tax increase on cigarettes. One could only presume that Congress learns its sense of fiscal analysis from the lots of used car dealerships, where gaudy banners stretching across the lots read, "Buy now, pay later." Meanwhile, as with any bloated federal government program, goals are being missed as waste drains funds, and liberal members of Congress, including maybe even some aspiring presidents, return to their districts with hat in hand, playing to the emotions of their constituents that not expanding or further funding such flawed programs will hurt poor children, etc., while such intended program recipients are already being ignored and/or hurt and the funds wasted by vast and unchecked ineptitude.

Whatever the catalyst of his recent fiscal epiphany, President Bush's recent more focused and more conservative management of our tax dollars is certainly welcome, while liberal panderers, such as Senator Dodd are still obsessed with spending more money on inefficient programs without any apparent knowledge as to how poorly they are working, and certainly no desire to fix them, as long as the money, in increased amounts, can keep endlessly coming in.

As Franc suggests, our lawmakers should instead focus more on helping the poor to afford and acquire their own private and for that matter, better health coverage.

Perhaps the chances for genuinely providing healthcare for our poor will be better after the 2008 election, when more of our politicians will be out of work, instead of desperately trying to keep it.

Doug Wrenn