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President Bush: "I believe government cannot provide affordable health care. I believe it would cause -- it would cause the quality of care to diminish. I believe there would be lines and rationing over time. If Congress continues to insist upon expanding health care through the S-CHIP program -- which, by the way, would entail a huge tax increase for the American people -- I'll veto the bill."
http://www.democracynow.org/...
He is just plain wrong....Dead Wrong!
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
How about for a child?
I met a man recently who at one time was unemployed and homeless. He told me that while he was down on his luck he got a tooth abscess. Because he could not afford health/dental insurance the infection spread form one tooth to the next. Finally to relieve his pain, he took a pair of pliers and one by one snapped off his molars.
We are the richest nation in the world and there are people in this country who resort to stone-age medicine to relieve their suffering. Worse, 18,000 people die from lack of access to health care in this nation. And here is the really ghastly part; some of them are children.
Nine million children do not have access to health care in this country due to lack of coverage. Recently there was a bipartisan effort to increase the availability of health care to America’s children via the S-CHIP. That is the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. The idea was to increase the funding to the program by $30-35 million by placing a tax on cigarettes. This would fund health care for most of the children and some adults. Let me point out these are not indigent people. These are the children of the working poor. People who put in their 40+ hours a week who can not afford insurance. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill:
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President Bush: "I believe government cannot provide affordable health care. I believe it would cause -- it would cause the quality of care to diminish. I believe there would be lines and rationing over time. If Congress continues to insist upon expanding health care through the S-CHIP program -- which, by the way, would entail a huge tax increase for the American people -- I'll veto the bill."
http://www.democracynow.org/...
As it turns out we already have rationing. We don’t have to wait in line to get care because 50 million people can not get care at all in this country. That is one in five. I don’t care if I have to wait a couple of extra days or weeks to get that nagging back pain that I have lived with for years fixed, if it means that a child with diabetes gets medicine that will literally save her life. I would rather see rationing of health care based on how critical the disease than how valuable we see the person’s job. (Or how valuable we see the person.)
But wait it gets worse. The American government is already spending as much in tax dollars per person on health care as all the other countries that provide 100% of their people 100% of their care. For the same money as they are spending we are covering 26% of our people for some of their care. So when President Bush and the other Neocons tell you that there is not enough money they are dead wrong. There is enough money but like so many other things in this administration the money is mismanaged and disappears.
So today I am asking for 5 minutes of your time. Call your senator and tell him/her that you want the S-CHIP fully funded. Tell them that you know they are not managing your money appropriately. Tell them when the President vetoes the bill you expect them to override it. Tell them you will NOT accept the death of a single child due to lack of health care!
Contact your Senator at:
http://www.senate.gov/...