This is the kind of thing that is going to lead to 60+ Democratic senators after the 2008 elections.
President Bush yesterday rejected entreaties by his Republican allies that he compromise with Democrats on legislation to renew a popular program that provides health coverage to poor children, saying that expanding the program would enlarge the role of the federal government at the expense of private insurance.
The president said he objects on philosophical grounds to a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. Bush has proposed $5 billion in increased funding and has threatened to veto the Senate compromise and a more costly expansion being contemplated in the House.
“I support the initial intent of the program,” Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post after a factory tour and a discussion on health care with small-business owners in Landover. “My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you’re really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government.”
The 10-year-old program, which is set to expire on Sept. 30, costs the federal government $5 billion a year and helps provide health coverage to 6.6 million low-income children whose families do not qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance on their own.
About 3.3 million additional children would be covered under the proposal developed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Republican Sens. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), among others.
After 2008, the Dems are going to have the White House, a filibuster proof Senate, and a bigger margin in the House, and it is not just because of Iraq. It’s because of policies like this.
This meshes well with Phronesis’ assertion that Americans are more progressive than conservative.
I sure hope you are both right.
And if that’s true, I wonder, has that been true a long time? The more I learn about optical scanning equipment, the more I wonder if our votes have been stolen from long before 2000….
Who, besides the ideologically driven conservative, has a problem with health care for poor children?
You know, when he said the Republicans were going to keep control of both chambers of Congress in ’06?
It’s entirely possible the fix was in then, but if it was, it was beaten back by the just-plain-pissed-offedness of the average voter in this country. And I suspect it’s only going to get worse in the next 16 months.
If not . . . well, I do know which way Canada is.
The Spin just not right:
“President Bush denies health care to American Children and requests 80 Billion Dollars for the War in Iraq.”
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The US is rated 36th nation in the world on infant mortality. The 21th century empire builder sits at a third world country mortality rate of 6.63 per 1,000 live births, compared to ‘Old Europe’ at 4.20 on average. This means with an annual 14.13 births per 1,000 population in the US (4,230,000 new born babies each year), America loses 10,300 of it’s citizens under the age of 1 year due to underfunded and poor health care. During the Republican “protection of life” 8 year reign: 82,400 unnecessary deaths of live born babies compared to ‘Old Europe’ countries. So what does the slogan “the greatest nation on earth” really mean? WHITES AND AFFLUENT ONLY?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."It’s even worse, Oui.
I think you multiplied the birth rate with the infant mortality rate.
Total estimate births x infant mortality rate = 28,000
And yes, if excluding data for minorities, the white US population would rank on top, or very high for most indices.
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I love math, the calculation is the differential of US – Old Europe multiplied by the annual births ::
(6.63 – 4.40) x 4,230,000 = 10,300 unnecessary deaths of babies every year.
On minorities, that’s why I listed the statistics for poor Dutch immigrants from Marrocco and Turkey as comparison, just a minimal difference with the native Dutch.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Spot on!
Reading too fast and didn’t catch that you calculated the differential.
your mouth to gods’ ear!!!
to lead, govern and do the people’s business, not the business of thepowerful and the special interests.
I also hope that they choose the middle way – the buddhist kinda middle way NOT, the DLC driven “third way” so the dems can build a long-term majority and not alientate crucial liberal – moderate republicans and independents in the general population.
I hope your right. But out in normal land the average person not only doesn’t know what we are talking about they don’t believe it because it’s not on the tee vee every night and faux news never talks about it so it can’t be true.
I know in blogovia here we know every scrap of info we can ferret out and hang on to, but ma and pa average ‘merikan thinks Bush is doing okay and what’s all the fuss. AND why are the Dem’s so mean?
Unfortunately, the numbers of politically aware folks are minuscule compared to the don’t know don’t care folks.
I keep looking for a break through. We need some way to get regular folks to care and to want to know. Right now most of them don’t.
Shirl-
you’re right about the public being apathetic and uninformed in a general sense. But the public is always that way. The question is, how they will vote?
Bush is doing nothing popular. He signed the minimum wage hike with a gun to his head. And that’s it. His policies are very, very unpopular.
And the GOP is taking a beating as a result. They can’t raise money or recruit any candidates, and the public increasingly refuses to call itself Republican.