Lost in the excitement of the Iowa caucuses was another callous decision by the Bush administration to shred the healthcare safety net. The administration issued a guideline that prohibited individual states from expanding eligibility for Medicaid. After the administration attacked the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) program to cover uninsured children in lower income households, states began to expand eligibility for Medicaid to deal with large numbers of uninsured children. Now, the Bush administration has cut off their ability to do that. Societies that torture, wage war against defenseless countries, and refuse to care for their most vulnerable citizens are ones in advanced stages of decline.
To fully appreciate this latest Bush attack on children, you need to remember the following timeline:
August 17 - the Bush administration issues a directive that states are no longer permitted to set their own eligibility policy for SCHIP.
On Friday evening, August 17th, the Administration issued a major new directive on children’s health coverage that effectively eliminates SCHIP for children above 250 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), or $42,925 for a family of three in 2007.
The directive, which came in the form of a letter to state officials, already has provoked a firestorm. Numerous opinion leaders and state officials have decried the policy as moving in exactly the wrong direction on children’s coverage.
October 3 - Bush proudly vetoes a bill to expand SCHIP to lower income families.
December 12 - Bush again vetoes a bill to expand SCHIP to lower income families.
December 13 - signs new energy bill with over 20 billion in tax subsidies to oil companies preserved after being eliminated in the House version of the bill.
January 4 - the Bush administration issues a directive prohibiting states from expanding Medicaid to moderate income children without health insurance.
The New York Times covered the latest attack on children without health insurance. The basics are very simple. States have always had considerable lattitude in setting their own eligibility criteria for Medicaid. On Friday (the day the administration typically uses to slip bad news past an inattentive public and media), the administration prohibited individual states from setting their own eligibility criteria for Medicaid. State officials in three states (Louisiana, Ohio, and Oklahoma) had been negotiating with federal government to expand Medicaid eligibility to address specific needs due to lingering effects of Katrina and economic sector losses.
Here is the priceless explanation offered by the king of the compassionate conservatives:
Tony Fratto, a spokesman for President Bush, defended the administration’s stance.
“We want states to focus on enrolling their neediest population before they consider expanding Medicaid and CHIP to middle-income families,” Mr. Fratto said. “This policy demonstrates the president’s compassion. He wants to direct scarce tax dollars to those with the greatest needs.”
Administration officials say government health programs start to “crowd out” private insurance when they cover families with incomes from 250 percent to 300 percent of the poverty level — about $51,600 to $62,000 for a family of four.
Making sure more children lack health insurance "demonstrates the president's compassion." At least Fratto was not lying. Bush is incapable of compassion for anyone except his wealthy supporters. With this decision, Bush was merely showing his callousness toward the less fortunate is a rigid trait.
There are several noteworthy aspects of this latest decision. First, it is a marked departure in policy even for the Bush administration.
The new federal policy reflects a significant shift. In the first four years of the Bush administration, Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, often boasted that he had approved record numbers of waivers, allowing states to decide who got what benefits under Medicaid and the child health program.
Second, Bush appears to have a new policy of rigid federalism. His administration is now actively fighting the ability of individual states to set their own environmental and health care policies. King Bush has spoken. Governors be damned when it comes to protecting the health of the citizens in their state. Bush is law, Bush is king.
To fully appreciate the depths of Bush depravity, the administration has been engaged in contentious negotiations with the state of Louisiana, still struggling to recover from Katrina and Bush FEMA incompetence.
In addition, federal officials challenged Louisiana to explain why it did not want to enforce the one-year waiting period for children who had lost private health insurance because of a parent’s death or the failure of a business where a parent was employed. In such cases, the state replied, the loss of coverage is involuntary, and the waiting period would “penalize children and families for circumstances beyond their control.”
Think about that for a second. The federal government is criticizing Louisiana for not wanting to enforce a one-year waiting period to extend benefits to children that lost health insurance because their parent died or lost their job. The Bush administration wants to make sure these children suffer for at least a year without health insurance coverage in the event of a tragedy or major stress before becoming eligible for Medicaid.
There should be a special place in infamy for leaders that attack children that have lost a parent to death or whose parents suffer from the loss of a job. At least the obscene tax subsidies for the oil industry are intact. I would hate to think how much their executives might have had to suffer without tax breaks on top of their record profits.
For all you ardent supporters of Edwards, Obama, or Clinton, take this story back to your candidate blogs and get it on the radar. We need LEADERSHIP on healthcare reform.