In the year since President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) into law on March 23, 2010, a sea of ink and digital bits have been spilled on every possible angle of commentary and advocacy about the law. But a year later, one simple conclusion deserves its share of sunshine: Health Reform is good for America’s 74 million children.
The Good News:
Insurance companies are no longer able to deny any child health coverage for chronic conditions. Common conditions such as asthma or diabetes were previously excuses for refusing coverage, even though these are the conditions that most often require health care for children. These diagnoses are grim enough to receive anyway. You can imagine the relief, now, for families who no longer have to fear whether they can get basic health insurance for their child. In California, alone, 1.1 million children and youth under age 25 have pre-existing conditions that previously would have resulted in health coverage denials.
Take, for example, this story from Celina, a MomsRising member from California. Her story demonstrates why moving forward with health care reform is critical for ensuring all kids have the chance to grow up healthy:
My child is adopted and was born with reflux and was later diagnosed with asthma. I cannot imagine what I would have done if his health was further compromised, because health insurance was denied due to a pre-existing condition. Thanks to our ability to secure ongoing health check-ups and keep his asthma under control, we have never experienced a full flare up nor have had to visit the emergency room. Which translates to many dollars saved!
Another relief to many families is that young adults can stay on their parent’s insurance through the age of 26. With a struggling economy, this option can be essential for young adults who are just getting started, and especially for those for whom a gap in health coverage would be life-threatening. Here’s an example from our colleagues at Young Invincibles: Sara, a 22-year-old with Type I Diabetes. After she began working a part-time job, she no longer qualified for Medicaid, and, without insurance, she would have to pay over $850 a month to control her condition. Her options are woefully limited without health reform.
When Sara found out about the cancellation of her health insurance, she tried to purchase insurance from her college campus, San Diego State University. However, after speaking with the school social worker, she found out that the plan would not work for her. It would only cover a maximum of $500 a year for over-the-counter prescriptions, nowhere near enough to meet her needs.
Looking to the private market has also not been an option. Although she works part-time while in school to help pay the rent, she does not earn nearly enough to pay the premium of a private market plan. As a result, Sara has stayed uninsured,
cobbling together various ways to maintain her health.
And it’s not just these individual stories that show how the law is making a difference. After the first year, the impact of the expanded coverage can be seen in a rise in enrollment. In California alone, Health Access estimates the number of newly eligible enrollees to be 200,000. And the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) reports to have enrolled 28,000 new older children.
For children and young people, especially, the focus needs to be on wellness and prevention-and it is under the Affordable Care Act. The good news is that families cannot be required to pay co-payments for preventive screenings, a provision that will protect nearly 6 million children under age 19 in California alone. By ensuring that children receive the right vaccinations and diagnoses, more expensive health care costs down the road can be avoided. More good news: insurance companies can’t just drop children when they are sick or limit the lifetime value of coverage.
And, families will finally have more control over their own lives. Without being restricted to employer-based coverage, if a child has a condition that would have been previously denied, a parent can make employment decisions that are in the best interest of their family, without risking their child’s coverage.
The Challenge Ahead:
If we are to reach our goal of making sure all of America’s 74 million children are insured by 2014, we cannot sit back now and jeopardize these tremendous gains. We must encourage political leaders to ensure that federal funding and guidance are available for full and effective implementation of ACA.
Making health reform work for families depends on states taking thoughtful and swift action, too. At this time when states across the country are struggling with serious budget deficits, we urge elected officials along with employers and philanthropic leaders to support states as they leverage the available federal funding for implementation as soon as possible.
As debate about the law continues in Congress and in the courts, we must remind ourselves that quality healthcare is good for our kids-and every child should have the opportunity to grow up healthy.
Wendy Lazarus is the Founder and Co-President of The Children’s Partnership, which advocates for improvements in child health care. Ms. Lazarus has been involved in advocacy for health coverage for all children for more than 35 years.
It’s tempting to look at the recent gay marriage defeats in Maine and California, and say at least we’re on the “right side of history.” The opposition is running on borrowed time, as young people increasingly support marriage equality. But the trend is not moving fast enough, and it’s clear that gay marriage supporters have been losing the “swing vote” in every election. Same-sex couples have largely won the battle for civil unions, but there’s something about “marriage” that makes moderates uneasy – and it’s time that we speak directly to their concerns. Third Way, a Washington DC based think tank, conducted a poll of 600 Maine voters right after Question One passed in November – which holds important conclusions we should build upon. As we look at repealing Prop 8 in California, going straight to those voters so we can win and finally move on to other battles is key. None of us want to wait until the old generation dies out, and nor should we have to.
As a Californian who traveled to Maine twice to help the “No on 1” effort, the Third Way report should not imply that we ran a bad campaign. Gay marriage advocates made important strides in Maine – such as not being afraid to talk about same-sex couples – that will move hearts and minds in the future. “No on 1” also did a great job mobilizing the base in an off-year election. It’s because we ran a good campaign that made losing so much more painful than California, where we all woke up after Election Day knowing that we could – and should – have done much better.
But what the report clearly shows is how we lost the “middle voters” – people who don’t explicitly support same-sex marriage, but who are persuadable on the issue. The poll asked voters to pick one of four positions: (a) 39% said gay couples should have full marriage rights, i.e., the base; (b) 22% said they should have the “same legal rights” but not call it marriage; (c) 25% said that marriage is between a man and a woman, but “there should be domestic partnerships or other legal rights” for gays; and (d) only 10% opted for no legal recognition. The 47% who picked (b) or (c) are the “movable” swing voters.
And we got creamed with those folks. On Maine’s Question 1, we lost 71% of those who picked (b) and 87% who chose (c). Third Way did a similar poll in Washington, where on the same day voters upheld a domestic partnership law for gays and lesbians. In that poll, nearly half of the “middle” voters sided with us. We can draw two conclusions from this. Either swing voters are “not ready” for gay marriage and we must settle for civil unions and domestic partnerships, or we can figure out how to get them to vote with us. Given that at least a portion of these voters are persuadable, there is no reason not to.
“Equality” Argument is Not Adequate
Although gay marriage campaigns focus on “equality” and “discrimination” as central themes, it is far more effective at mobilizing the base – but does not resonate with most swing voters. Only 22% of “middle” voters in the Maine poll agreed that denying gays and lesbians the right to marry is “discrimination,” and 31% agreed with the “separate but equal” analogy. The argument that we should not have “one set of rules” for one group of people (including marriage laws) did better (43%), but in general it is not sufficient.
In its report, Third Way had an interesting explanation: “the middle sees marriage as an ideal as opposed to a legal construct, and they have yet to be persuaded that gay couples fit into this ideal … Using the language of equality and rights to describe marriage feels legalistic to the middle and misses the true spirit of how they envision marriage.” That’s why “equality” is enough to persuade them to support civil unions, but not gay marriage.
In order to win, we must re-frame the debate about the fundamental values of marriage.
What is Marriage – and What Do Gays Want?
Like all voters across the spectrum, the “middle” is concerned about the state of marriage in this country. More in the Maine poll said marriage has “major problems” than said it was in “good shape” or has “minor problems.” So when gay marriage advocates argue that half of all straight marriages end in divorce anyway, that does not really address their concerns. They already fear that marriage is “threatened,” and don’t want it to get worse.
How respondents describe “marriage” had a major impact as to whether they opposed Question 1. If they said it was a “lifetime commitment,” they voted with us 62-38 – but calling it a “sacred bond” made them vote three-to-one against us. A “union between two people” also helped us, but very few swing voters agreed with that description. In other words, pushing the notion that gays take marriage seriously enough to make a “lifetime commitment” goes a long way in helping these voters understand why it’s so important.
Whether people thought gays want to “change” marriage – as opposed to “join” marriage – also made a huge difference. Those who said “change” voted “Yes on 1” by a nine-to-one margin, while 74% of respondents who picked “join” went with us. The problem is, more swing voters believed that gay people are trying to “change” marriage. Explaining that we just want to be part of an institution that values lifetime commitment will help.
One of the most effective ads that the “No on 1” campaign did was with Yolande Dumont, a French Catholic grandmother – as her gay son, his partner and their ten-year-old son look on. “I believe marriage is a great institution,” she said. “It works, and it’s what I want for my children.”
Can Somebody Think of the Children? Go Talk to Your Kids!
Just like in California, the “Yes on 1” campaign in Maine focused their message almost exclusively on the impact it would have on schools – which had a big impact on swing voters. 74% of Maine voters in the “middle” said they were concerned about schools “teaching homosexuality.” The Third Way report speculated it’s not just about schools, but children in general. “They are trying to make people feel uncomfortable about the consequences for kids of allowing couples to marry and stoke fears that kids will not value marriage in the same way if gay and lesbian couples are allowed to participate.”
But there are indications the approach we took in Maine had an incremental positive effect. Rather than respond to the charge that schools will “teach” gay marriage, “No on 1” talked about how the opposition wants to make our families “feel ashamed” for being different. The Third Way poll used this language with half its respondents, and used the other half as a control group. It moved nine points in our favor, and eight points among swing voters.
The most fascinating statistic, however, was that those who actually have kids under 18 were more likely to vote our way: by 52-48, when we lost the election 47-53. This suggests to me the “Yes on 1” ads were more effective on voters who “care” about “the children” – but don’t have kids at home to understand what really goes on at school.
On that note, voters who said they actually talked to their kids about Question 1 were more likely to vote “no” – by a 55-45 margin. And while half of them believed it was “likely” that schools would teach about homosexuality if gay marriage were legal, only 40% said they were “concerned” about that. Could it be that when parents talked to their children about gay marriage, they realized they didn’t have much to worry about?
It reminds me of a canvassing experience I had outside of Bangor. I was talking with a mother who had seen the “Yes on 1” ads about schools, and said she was confused about what it all meant. I explained that what our opponents fear is schools teaching tolerance, they want our kids to feel ashamed if they don’t come from the traditional family. There are many kids with gay parents, I said, and they get teased at school for being different.
The mom turned to her daughter and asked, “is that true?”
“Yes,” said the six-year old girl.
Gay marriage activists always talk about the need for LGBT people to “come out” in their communities – that people won’t vote to take our rights away if they can actually put a human face on the issue. The Third Way poll certainly showed that Mainers were more likely to vote “no” if they knew a gay person (especially if they knew them well), and people who had talked to a gay person about the issue voted two-to-one in our favor.
But in small rural towns in Maine (and other parts of the country), most people don’t know any gays. While 70% of parents in the poll said they had talked to their kids about the issue, only 46% of all respondents said they talked to a gay person about the election.
Rather than wait for the old generation to die, it makes more sense to start having kids talk to their parents about marriage equality. And it certainly won’t take that long …
Paul Hogarth is the Managing Editor of Beyond Chron, San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily, where this piece was first published.
Picture a nation where all children have enough nutritious food to eat and never worry where they’ll find their next meal. They eat three solid, healthy meals a day, have a couple of snacks, and go to bed without fearing hunger. According to President Obama, who made a campaign pledge to end childhood hunger in the United States by 2015, this is the world he wants to see by six years from now.
The Obama Administration is beginning to put some effort behind this pledge. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is holding a series of listening sessions around the country on ways to achieve the 2015 goal. One of those sessions was recently held here in Oakland, Calif.
Groups and individuals from various sectors, including state agencies, industry and advocacy groups, and service providers showed up and shared ideas on how to end childhood hunger over the next six years. We at the Alameda County Community Food Bank were there to represent the hundreds of thousands of county residents who live with hunger – numbers that are escalating on a monthly basis.
We’ve laid out a number of recommendations that will lead our country down the right path toward ending hunger. The administration and Congress can take a number of steps:
First, we need to get the economy fully back on solid ground. Our food pantries, soup kitchens and other community agencies distribute 300,000 meals in Alameda County each week – 35 percent of them to children – and we’ve seen the numbers rise drastically over the past year. Food stamp participation is growing rapidly also. Sustained economic growth will quickly reduce the number of hungry people in our community walking in our doors each day. We’re one of the few businesses that would be thrilled to see our number of clients decline.
Next, the federal safety net programs that people depend on during times need to be further strengthened – beyond the temporary allotments included in the recent stimulus funding.
Finally, Congress currently is considering the child nutrition bill. It’s due to be renewed and contains a number of programs that low and moderate income children rely on – including the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program for pregnant women and young children, school breakfast and lunch programs and the summer and afterschool nutrition programs.
The Alameda County Community Food Bank focuses a great deal of attention on increasing access to the summer feeding program when school is out. Currently, in order for a summer enrichment program to get funds to provide lunches to children in its care, it must be in an area where more than half the children receive free or reduced-price meals. If this threshold was lowered to 33 percent where it used to be, or even just to 40 percent, a significant number of additional hungry children would have access to meals during the summer months. Simple changes like this are needed to chip away at child hunger.
It’s daunting – and thrilling – to visualize moving from 12 million American children who are hungry or on the edge of hunger to none in six years. The Obama Administration is on the right track; now it’s time for all of us to unite, quickly move forward and take every step needed to reach a nation of well-fed children.
Susan Bateson is the Executive Director of the Alameda County Community Food Bank.
As a state, we face many tough choices in the coming months. However, increasing the state’s tobacco tax is not a tough choice-it’s a no-brainer.
California’s tobacco tax has not increased in more than a decade. Now is the time to increase the cost of cigarettes to protect our kids, their education, and their health.
To fill the current budget hole, the Governor has announced a series of cuts that would hit children and families hardest. Under his plan, our neighborhood schools would be slated for the biggest cuts since the Great Depression. One million low-income children would be left without health insurance. Just as our universities and state colleges would be hit with more cuts, our low and middle income kids would be left without the financial aid that has made college possible for generations of Californians.
If these cuts were to go into effect, California would be the only state without a safety net for women and children. These cuts would devastate children and leave an imprint on our state that will be felt for years to come. Opportunities that were given to our generation simply wouldn’t be there for today’s kids. The termination of these cost effective and successful programs would also terminate billions in federal matching dollars.
A tobacco tax is a revenue option that provides much more than just revenue. It blunts tobacco’s heavy toll on human lives by making smoking less accessible, especially among kids. Studies show that for every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes, youth smoking rates decline by 7 percent and about 4 percent overall.
Cigarette taxes also ease the enormous economic burden to existing public health programs that treat tobacco related illnesses. In California, smoking related costs total more than $15 billion each year. Nationwide, smoking-caused health care costs total $10.28 per pack sold in the U.S.
An increase to our tobacco tax is long overdue. Thirty-three states tax their tobacco products at a higher rate than California. Since 2002, 44 other states and the District of Columbia have increased their cigarette taxes-California’s levels haven’t changed from 87 cents since 1998.
When you propose a tax like the tobacco tax, you hear a lot of arguments against it. And I’ve heard them all:
They say it won’t provide enough money to get us out of the hole. True. But for every $1 added to the tobacco tax, we could raise $1 billion in revenue. An increase could be enough to keep healthy families afloat and offset a large amount of cuts to education.
They say this tax hurts the poor most. This may be the most deceptive argument used against the tax. Tobacco hurts the poor most already. Low income people, who have limited access to health care, have higher smoking rates, are more likely to suffer from tobacco related diseases and to die from those diseases.
And, let’s be clear: this is a tax no one has to pay. I know that smoking is addictive, that’s why I’ve added a clause to my legislative proposal that would have the state pay for cessation programs that help people kick the habit.
They say that, as fewer people give up smoking, the amount of tax revenue will decline. Well, I welcome that. I look forward to the day when we’ll again have to scramble for funds because so few people are smoking.
Finally, they say the public doesn’t support tobacco tax increases. Not so. Polls consistently demonstrate the opposite is true. A Field Poll conducted at the end of April showed 75 percent of Californians support raising the tobacco tax.
It is true that even before we were in the current budget crisis, I’ve been working to increase California’s tobacco tax: my motive isn’t just to increase revenue. My motive is kids. Nearly 90 percent of every adult smoker took his or her first puff by the age of 18. The revenue is necessary, now more than ever. However, most importantly, if you have the ability to keep kids from making a major health decision that will impact their quality of life for years to come; it’s really a no-brainer.
Tom Torlakson represents the 11th Assembly District. He is author of Assembly Bill 89 which would increase the state’s tobacco tax.
A famous US patriot once said “These are the times that try men’s souls.” At the time, he spoke of the events and circumstances surrounding the birth of a nation destined to be defined by the rights and freedoms of the people; a nation led by government of the People, by the People and for the People, where leaders could inspire the People to stand united in spite of differing opinions or particular religious influence.
The advent of the twenty-first century has marked the most severe departure from our founding principles than ever before. We stand on the brink of self-immolation, leaderless and adrift, while selfish, arrogant hypocrites steer our ship of state toward the shoals.
Should we fail now to grow resolute and united in our determination to right this ship, we fail not only ourselves but our children, and their children’s children.
It is time to look to those children for inspiration and a reminder of what we, as adults, are tasked with as parents and guardians: to create and foster an environment where children can grow to adulthood, secure in the knowledge that we have passed along the best models for ethical leadership and responsible stewardship of this nation that we know how.
And a little child shall lead them
On Tuesday, September 6, 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, an article appeared in the New York Times about a curious band of refugees that walked into a Baton Rouge evacuation point: six children, comprised of five toddlers following a six year old boy carrying a five month old child:
They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.
Leadership, in action, during a time where the adult leadership of the nation was focused on trying not to appear wholly incompetent.
They failed.
In times of crisis, a nation needs to have faith in the capacity of its appointed leaders to step in and guide them safely through. Taken in that context, our “leaders” have not simply failed — they have failed miserably, to the point where we can no longer think of them as “leaders” at all: that was the turning point where a more critical, if jaundiced, eye was cast upon their actions, and their carefully-constructed façade began to crumble to dust around them.
They were brutally upstaged by the simple competence of a small child.1
Those self-same leaders, who proclaim their compassion for fellow citizens and their love for children, ardently oppose abortion rights for women — and equally oppose providing insurance for millions of uninsured children. They claim to support scientific research, but stand firm against fully embracing stem cell research while hypocritically claiming successful justification of their idiocy by pointing at the work of foreign scientists — scientists who are forging ahead in the field, while our own endeavors flounder here at home.2
Where have all the (adult) leaders gone?
In the year 2007, that question has been asked repeatedly, with growing emphasis. An eighty-two years old businessman by the name of Lee Iacocca even wrote a book with a very similar title: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?3 In order to find out where to look for leadership, and how to recognize it, we should take a peek inside the cover. The opening passages of the book alone should have sounded a clarion call to the would-be and wanna-be leaders of today:
I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.
Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions.
Iacocca shouts out that he’d love to sit back and let the youth lead the charge against the encroaching apathy and ongoing destruction of our nation, but the youth is currently distracted and disillusioned. Our children and our young adults — by far one of the bigger factions of the public — don’t trust our politicians to represent their interests; he doesn’t blame them for this, but wants them to wake up and realize that only by standing up and participating in the system can they hope to change it for the better. He laments that we have created “a hell of a mess” and must all pitch in to clean it up.
So here’s where we stand. We’re immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We’re running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We’re losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.
But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: “Where have all the leaders gone?” Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense?
Those people are the ones who appear to be missing in action. Our Congress holds the responsibility to bring oversight and accountability to the workings of the government, particularly the Executive Branch;
I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn’t elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys show some spine for a change?
[…snip…]
You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it’s building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play.
We all have a role to play. We need our Congress to play its role and to actively put the wayward Executive Branch back on track. We ourselves need to drop the veil of false civility and inject the righteous anger and frustration of our national plight into the public discourse — it is no longer time for political correctness, it’s time for political correction.
A Child’s Lead and a Childish Leader: Political Correction vs. “Politically Correct”
The legacy of the Republican Party of this day and age can be summed up in the person of their de facto creation: George W. Bush, and the malAdministration that he leads. Juxtaposed against pretty words carefully calculated to say one thing while supporting the opposite, the legacy of Bush Republicans is one of malignant deceit. They claim support of science, yet undermine any research that doesn’t support their politics in spite of the harm to the public or to national security. They claim to be strong on national security, yet gut the programs that would most help the nation and provide true security in order to prop up failed adventures as “successful” — all the while causing more harm than good. They loudly insist that they have created a better, stronger system for education while creating a system where states and schools are practically encouraged to misreport statistics in order to continue receiving funds. Is are children learning became a national embarrassment, along with the memorable phrase Childrens do learn,4 both brought to the forefront of national discourse by the ignoble head of the Republican Party and purported “leader” of the free world. Bush Republicans also support and extol the virtues of misnamed national policies like The Clean Air Act or Healthy Forests. These morally bankrupt hypocrites claim their support of severe restrictions on embryonic stem cell research helps children and credit research by others in another nation as evidence of their argument, and they aggressively push for war in the name of peace.5
It is a legacy of deceit, denial and dissembly.
It’s time we stood tall and dropped the false cover that political correctness provides to those who excel in prevarication. We need to be direct. We need to be forceful. We need to be blunt.
The child appeared to be imitating something she had seen — probably more than once — when associated with the man standing in front of her. But unlike the parent who quickly and gently hid her action from view, the child’s gesture demonstrated exactly the type of blunt, direct and peaceful confrontation that our adult selves have been sorely deficient in. Fortunately, it is a deficiency that is not complete.
Indeed, some Americans have already figured out that the best way to confront the hypocrisy is to visibly challenge those most responsible for it. In this clip, Richard “Dick” Cheney has his own words from the Senate floor (June 25, 2004) quoted back to him in the aftermath of Katrina, when the Bush officials finally decided it was safe to attempt a few photo ops:
Another adult who stood up to the Bush Administration, directly confronting Bush with dignity and grace, was Harry Taylor, a man who is now running for Congress:
These occurrences are, however, too few and far between. In the interest of our national well-being and the future of both the nation and the children who have lent us the temporary custody of it, we have to do better. Congress has to do better. Our next President has to do better. The current crop of ethically challenged and fiscally irresponsible Republicans know that if they are confronted — if the people begin to stand up and demand answers, criticizing the constant stream of noxious nonsense that is being spread thickly over the landscape — then they will lose their grip on power. They know they will likely lose billions in ill-gotten gains. And some of them, if we are truly diligent in our pursuit of truth and justice, may just end up in jail. They know this, and they are striving to push back against it. They have stooped so low as to repeat and augment the Nixon-era’s challenge that “if the President does it, it’s legal” — they even attempt to quiet dissent by challenging it with the language of treason, while in actuality it is their own actions that betray the nation and her people.
We, the People of the United States of America, need to ensure that this happens. If not for ourselves, then do it for the children. They’re watching us, and will learn from our mistakes as well as our successes — but shouldn’t we try to demonstrate how much better it is to chalk up successes in the fight for freedom and democracy?
Set an example; throw the bums out, try them in accordance with the law, not in a kangaroo court, and when they are justly convicted ensure that they are justly imprisoned.
Namaste.
____________________________________________
Notes and Additional Video Support:
____________________________________________
1. Children have made headlines even more recently as enfants provocateurs (h/t Reason Online via Dawg’sBlog). From News24, an African online news source, comes this story on June 21, 2007:
Cops charge 3-year-old ‘rioter’
21/06/2007 13:44 – (SA)
Patna, India – Police in India have charged a three-year-old boy for allegedly leading a group of rioters and firing at security personnel, the toddler’s uncle said on Thursday.
[…snip…]
This news, of course, comes on the heels of a story from the previous month, detailing that charges were dropped against a six year old boy who was accused of molesting and assaulting a woman in her thirties, again in India.
Those kids in India…gotta watch ’em every minute. ;P
Mr. Spinmeister neglected to mention a few key facts in his apologetic zeal to lay the wreath of discovery at the feet of George Bush. To make a a skin cell behave like an embryonic stem cell, a couple of things go without saying: you’d have to know what an embryonic stem cell does. It would be damn helpful to have worked with human cells, particularly skin cells and embryonic stem cells. And that might be an obstacle if you happened to live in a country where having the latter is an expensive, over regulated pain in the ass specifically because of the unpopular policy of a certain unpopular President. Which may explain in part why this breakthrough occurred in Japan.
3. Iacocca, Lee and Catherine Whitney. Where Have All the Leaders Gone?; New York: Scribner, 2007. ISBN 1-416-53247-1. Citations and initial link in the piece above via Snopes.
4. This DailyKos diary by buffalo provided a most excellent and relevant YouTube video containing two key clips of education-related Bush malapropisms: George W. Bush: Childrens do learn!, posted 28 September 2007:
5. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Etc., etc. From Always Tell the Truth, posted by TileNut on April 16, 2006.
Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.
SCHIP serves 6.6 million children for $5 billion a year. It sounds like a lot, but when you do the math, that’s only $758 per child per year. (The actual total cost per child is slightly larger, because some families pay a small premium, while others pay nothing.) If you’ve done any shopping for individual health insurance, you’ll know that for a bargain, largely possible because the state can bargain very hard with the private companies who run it (in California, the most popular plan is Blue Cross), and because it’s a large risk pool of mostly healthy individuals.
Great.
But, we wouldn’t want to provide this subsidy to richer children. They’d leave private health insurance, sending the government’s burden up… right? Make the rich pay their own way!
Well, for the SCHIP money pool, maybe.
But here’s a fun fact. Health insurance is tax deductible if it is purchased by the employer or by a self-employed individual, which is the majority of American health insurance. If we say my daughter’s portion of my health insurance policy is $2400, and I’m in the 25% tax bracket + 15% for social security/payroll/self employment tax, then the Federal Government is picking up $960 of her annual premiums.
That’s right. My private health insurance costs the government more than if we were to enroll her in SCHIP. (Not to mention how much more it costs out of my pocket.)
If I made more money, and popped into the 35% bracket, the government would pay even more, and I’d pay less. (I guess that’s because if I made enough for the 35% bracket, money would be tight with the high price of yacht fuel.)
But thank goodness we’re not benefitting from that large state risk pool!
(Welcome to the post-honeymoon era. – promoted by blogswarm)
What’s going on here? I thought that Ahhnuld wanted to provide health care to poor children…
But now, he wants to cut welfare aid to these same kids. So they can go to the doctor for a check-up, but they can’t eat and they can’t have a roof over their heads? I really don’t get this. If this is “post-partisan cooperation”, then I’m not particularly impressed.
More after the jump…
So what’s going on here? I opened the LA Times this morning to find this:
The proposed $465-million reduction in California’s welfare budget came two days after the governor promised that his second term would feature “post-partisan” cooperation.
It was met immediately with resistance from Democrats, who expressed bewilderment that the governor would attempt to cut welfare aid to children in the same week his administration is expected to move forward with a plan to expand health insurance to many of the same children.
Wow, so much for a Governor with even an ounce of compassion for poor children! I guess he doesn’t really care about “post-partisan cooperation”, either! Why target poor kids like this? Sorry. but I don’t get it…
And neither do I get this:
“It’s ironic that the governor is proposing healthcare for poor kids while taking away their breakfasts,” state Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) said of the cuts, which would affect more than 40,000 families. “Even Republican Gov. [Pete] Wilson, at the time he negotiated welfare reform, agreed that children should not suffer for the behavior of their parents.”
The plan alarmed advocates for the poor, who predicted that eliminating the cash payments of several hundred dollars a month would substantially increase the risk of homelessness for those families.
Schwarzenegger’s proposal also would eliminate this year’s cost-of-living increase for welfare recipients.
HUH??!! WTF??!! So it’s OK for poor kids to have health care, but not a place to live and food to eat. Again, I don’t get Ahhnuld’s “logic” here. Either we care about the well-being of these at-risk kids, or we don’t. Yes, yes, I understand that this could be Ahhnuld’s way of offering an olive branch to the wingnut GOPers in the Legislature…
But why sacrifice the needs of poor children, just so that there’s less “welfare spending” in the budget, just so that the wingnuts can be a little happier with this?
If this is what Ahhnuld meant when he talked about being “bipartisan”, then I don’t want any of this…
And I don’t think that all the California families living in poverty want it either.
