The vetoed bill proposed higher tobacco taxes to provide an extra $35bn (£17bn) to insure some 10 million children.////// It is directed at families who earn too much to qualify for the Medicaid programme for the poor but cannot afford private health insurance cover. Mr Bush had said he wanted only a $5bn increase in funding for the scheme. He argued that expanding its coverage further would encourage people currently covered in the private sector to switch to government coverage - and that the proposal was too costly. His decision to veto the bill is likely to prove unpopular with many people, however, correspondents say.
mike65 wrote: Sounds like a money matter rather than protecting cigarette producers per se. Mike.
The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that some 794,000 children in these lowest-income families are eligible for S-CHIP and are not currently covered.
Manic Moran wrote: As ever, there are two sides to every story. The Democrats love this issue because they can just put up a picture of the poorest, most downtrodden yet cute kid they can find and proclaim "What sort of cruel person can deny this kid?" Yet Bush is not against S-CHIP per se, he's against S-CHIP as expanded into new territory. See, for example, http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20071001/ts_csm/achildhealth_1 Don't you think the US should focus its resources on these kids before attempting to expand the scope of eligibility to higher income levels? Further, once you start expanding into those higher levels ($72,000 a year in New Jersey!?) you're getting to territory where most jobs will have some form of private health coverage as an option. Making the family suddenly available for free public healthcare will result in people opting out of their private coverage and increasing the burden on the public system when it's un-necessary. NTM
Akrasia wrote: According to Democracy Now, Bush said he vetoed the bill because he it would promote government backed health care
Mordeth wrote: why not tax hum vee's, firearms or porn.it's always the smokers.,
Manic Moran wrote: Don't you think the US should focus its resources on these kids before attempting to expand the scope of eligibility to higher income levels?
Further, once you start expanding into those higher levels ($72,000 a year in New Jersey!?) you're getting to territory where most jobs will have some form of private health coverage as an option.
Making the family suddenly available for free public healthcare will result in people opting out of their private coverage and increasing the burden on the public system when it's un-necessary.
bonkey wrote: Wasn't the bill that he vetoed doing both? Its not like these poor kids were being neglected in order to expand the scope of eligibility....both were being tackled together?
By stripping out a requirement that S-CHIP cover 95 percent of the neediest children before extending it to higher-income children, Congress is undermining a key intent of the program, Mr. Fratto says.
Thats the correct place to pitch the cut-off point. <snip> either you have personal insurance or it is provided for you. Everyone is covered.
But its being done in conjunction with increased funding to cover exactly those costs. So its not increasing the burden on the system, its expanding the coverage of the system whilst simultaneously expanding the funding of the sytem to meet this coverage.
Manic Moran wrote: No. S-CHIP is being renewed and expanded by this bill, not introduced for the first time. Indeed, it seems that in the bill as presented, it reduces this effect.
This is reasonable, but does Switzerland do it in the same generic manner of a base salary level cut-off?
I'll wager that even if it does, that the cost of living difference across the country is far less than the difference between, say, San Francisco and Fresno, or New York City and Buffalo, yet the programme as billed applies state-wide standards.
Just because more money is coming in does not mean that the money is being spent efficiently.
bonkey wrote: No method of assessment is perfect. No matter how granular you implement it, someone will win, someone will lose, someone will be able to game the system. Also, the more granular you go, the more it costs you to implement some form of fair assessment. In such a case it may be that a simple salary-based implementation is the cheapest.
No, it certainly doesn't...but is it inefficient to include more people in the net?
but rather went along the lines that too many people would be covered.
Manic Moran wrote: Given that there's a finite amount of money involved (Which is another argument entirely), he could well be right.
You want to get the (Number out of posterior) 2 million currently uncovered kids coveraged. If the proposed legislation covers 3million kids, even if it would cover all 2 million currently uncovered, that's too many.
You want to concentrate those funds on the neediest, not spread it around too much.
