Conservatives interested in changing the SCOTUS aren't the only ones
feeling burned by Bush. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley also feels betrayed--over his efforts to
pass a Katrina relief bill:
"Unfortunately, the White House is working against me behind the scenes, and I resent that, considering how I've delivered so much for the White House over the last five years," Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Charles Grassley said at a hearing on recovery efforts from the U.S. Gulf Coast hurricanes.
Seems like Grassley is finally learnig the lesson we've all known for a long time: you can't trust George W. Bush--ever.
What exactly is Bush trying to block? See on the flip.
The Center for American Progress has a good summary of the Grassley-Baucus proposal:
The Grassley-Baucus proposal would:
1. Provide Katrina survivors with health coverage wherever they are now located. A simplified eligibility and enrollment process would be created to enroll people from federal disaster counties in Mississippi and Alabama and federal disaster parishes in Louisiana into Medicaid. It would also extend to people who live elsewhere in the affected states who have lost their jobs since Hurricane Katrina. This coverage would encompass everyone with income below the poverty level, pregnant women and children with income up to twice the poverty level.
2. Make it simple and swift to care for Katrina survivors. Once enrolled, Katrina survivors who are located in other states would receive Medicaid as though they were Medicaid enrollees in that state. This means no new systems or rules for health care providers or states.
3. Provide fair, guaranteed federal funding for health care for Katrina survivors. The federal government would pay all of the cost of providing Medicaid to covered Katrina survivors in any state in which they are enrolled. This would continue for five months with a potential five month extension.
4. Provide financial relief to states. The federal government would pay the full cost of Medicaid coverage for all residents of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama through December 2006. In addition, the proposal would ensure that no state would experience a decrease in its federal matching rate in 2006.
5. Provide new funds for health care providers. A new, federally administered Disaster Relief Fund would offset uncompensated care costs that health care providers have incurred caring for Katrina survivors.
Clearly a horrible proposal from Dubya's point of view. If there's a unifying thread to Bush's domestic policy it is that anything that helps the poor must be killed. Help victims with their health care? Forget it!
Best of all, he's working behind the back of one of his closest allies in the Senate to kill this bill. So much for doing what it takes to make things right for Katrina victims. So much for the "compassion" in "compassionate conservatism." And so much for loyalty, as Chuck Grassley is finding out:
"If you're going to see Secretary Leavitt, tell him to get the White House to back off of our bill," Grassley said. "There's people hurting down there and we need to get some help for them."
People hurting? This won't move Bush at all.