The SCHIP Trip: Living The Poverty Life In A Half Million Dollar Home
October 8th, 2007SCHIP is the federal program to provide socialized medicine to children whose parents are “underemployed.”
I don’t sit on the Finance subcommittee that manages Nevada’s SCHIP budget, but I remember how badly the state overestimated the number of children who would use the plan. (1998, 2000, 2003, all Review Journal) It wasn’t until the state advertised in spanish that state officials were happy with participation.
It’s been interesting, therefore, to watch the debate in Washington over expanding this program.You may have heard about the poor little 12-year-old boy who the Democrats brought to Washington to give their weekly radio address this weekend. The little tyke brought tears to all listeners’ eyes with his story about SCHIP services repairing his broken body after a tragic car accident in 2004, when his dad couldn’t afford insurance. If you haven’t yet heard his story, it is covered here by the Baltimore Sun.
Meanwhile, out here in the desert southwest, a few conservative bloggers decided to check facts. Some interesting angles turned up in freerepublic.com’s research: his parents appear to live in a half-million dollar home, and can apparently afford $20-thousand per year per kid for private school tuition for both him and his sister. I find it especially interesting that freerepublic.com’s work is heavily documented, while the Sun’s is straight off the Democrats’ press release.
October 9th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Will this new expansion of SCHIP also require more money from the state?
October 17th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
[...] mention was made, of course, of the gigantic D PR disaster two weeks ago, when they enlisted a 12-year-old to evoke sympathy with how SCHIP had paid for his medical bills, [...]
October 24th, 2007 at 6:09 am
We are arguing over tactics that each side of the issue is using and then cherry-picking the facts to justify each side position. The fact is that we have a health care crisis now and it will get much worse if we as a nation fail to act. Socialize health care well become an enormous tax burden but, private health insurance alone is not the answer either. We as consumers pay for it through taxes or increase cost at the doctors’ office. I recommend a combination of both. I went to Congressman Porter’s office in Henderson and briefed his staff on my idea. To my surprised they were intrigued. Basically, we pay into a national pool and pick a plan that we can afford and meets our needs. No longer will we get insurance through work but through the national pool. How it would benefit the employer is that put the money they would spend on a plan, that money would go into our paychecks and we could use that money to purchase our own health plan. There is more to my idea and I realize that it is not perfect solution but it is a start. I do have one last comment concerning tax money being spent. I would have more respect for the right complaining about government spending if I read or heard you all going after the contractors that are ripping us taxpayers off of billions of dollars in Iraq & Afghanistan instead of a middle income family!