10/19/07
Kudos to Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn
Marsha Blackburn, Republican Congresswoman from Tennessee offers us a particularly good explanation of the reasons that upholding President Bush's veto of the SCHIP expansion was correct.
It's particularly relevant given her home state's disastrous experience with socialized medicine.
For any of you who are represented by a member of Congress who voted to uphold the veto, I urge you to contact his or her office and thank them for standing up for liberty, limited government, and quality health care.
http://news.google.com/?ncl=1121982675&btclp=1&
Comment by Congressman Marsha Blackburn, R-TN
Blackburn Statement on Failed SCHIP Override Vote
Today, Congressman Marsha Blackburn moved to rein in the liberal Leadership's move to "slow motion socialism" by voting to sustain President Bush's veto of H.R. 976. Rep. Blackburn had the following statement after the House voted to sustain the veto 273 to 156.
"Everyone in Tennessee watched TennCare, Tennessee's attempt to institutionalize Hillary Clinton's plan for universal healthcare, inflict pain and pressure on our healthcare system. We observed first hand that expanded enrollments weakened eligibility requirements, which lead to access and affordability problems. I am therefore proud of my colleagues for sustaining the President's veto on H.R. 976, legislation that ignores the TennCare lessons, while spending billions of dollars to substitute private health insurance coverage with government-run healthcare coverage."
Blackburn, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on Health, noted that H.R 976 would weaken current law requiring states to document a beneficiary's citizenship status; a move that would allow illegal immigrants to access government-funded health care benefits.
"By attempting to strip current law prohibiting Medicaid benefits to illegal immigrants, H.R. 976 would prevent the federal government from ensuring that taxpayer-funded SCHIP services are only distributed to qualified individuals. The vetoed bill would have moved SCHIP from a block grant to an entitlement program and would have increased spending more than $120 billion in federal funding over the next ten years. The poorly drafted bill would have left the program under funded by $40 billion in mid 2012. Why would someone vote for a bill that plans to fail?"
"I remain committed to working with my colleagues across the aisle to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program to protect underprivileged children who currently lack health insurance. However, I cannot support legislation that will expand the welfare state, provide government health care benefits to illegal immigrants, and irresponsibly draw-down the public purse."
2 comments
on 10/20/07 at 07:01
the income requirements now in place would also be eligible.
Those that could well afford private insurance would be eligible to take advantage of this program, therefore decreasing the amount to benefits to those who truly need it.
I support Marsha Blackburn's decision, on both the illegal immigration benefit and the income requriement issue, if that was the case.
You're absolutely right about the income and the "crowd-out" effect, i.e. where people drop private coverage to get "free" government coverage.
Here's a quote from a very recent Heritage article on the subject, describing their analysis based on an MIT Professor's methodology:
This analysis found that Congress's expansion proposals for SCHIP could cover as many as 2.4 million newly eligible children, but because of crowd out, the ranks of the uninsured would decrease by only 1 million. This is because, for every 100 newly eligible children in families with incomes between 200 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), 54 to 60 children would lose the private coverage that they have today.
You can read the whole Heritage piece here:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm1627.cfm
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