This week we saw the expansion of SCHIP pass the House with 265 votes (mostly Democrats in favor) but short of a veto-proof majority. SCHIP stands for the State Children's Health Insurance Program which insures millions of underprivileged kids. Congress wants to expand the successful program to cover an additional three million young Americans. So why does George Bush vow to veto it?
Rockridge Institute explains:
The U.S. House voted overwhelmingly for an expanded children's health care program (SCHIP), 265-159. President George W. Bush has said he will veto any expansion of the program, and supporters fear they will fall short of votes necessary to override Bush's veto. And what's Bush's reason for the veto? Well, SCHIP works, and because it works it may lead the nation toward (gasp!) a health care security plan that doesn't measure the nation's health or moral standing by the size of private health insurance company profits.
Bush has a point. If 10 million American children are made healthy through a government managed program, the next thing you know some more of the 100 million or so uninsured or under-insured Americans might recognize that their health has been sacrificed on the altar of a private insurance industry that didn't even exist 70 years ago.
That's right. The property and life insurance industry didn't want to get into health insurance because they couldn't figure out how to make a profit. Insuring houses was a piece of cake. Only a few burn down, after all. And the companies get all those premiums from all those people whose houses don't burn down. Life insurance worked because premiums paid to a company over a lifetime could be invested, earning more for the company than would have to be paid in death benefits. But health? Heavens, everyone gets sick, everyone ages and weakens. Benefits would be paid continually to everybody who paid premiums. Where's the profit in that?
Ultimately it comes down to the money. Forget the welfare of helpless children, they don't make money for his buddies in the insurance industry. Not only that, but evidence of a good government program doesn't mesh with the typical Republican talking points of less government and the mantra that the market takes care of everyone. Bush doesn't just hate children, he hates programs that work for Americans in general.
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