Political Bull

Last night shortly before heading to bed I read this article titled Bush Policies Bad for Kids, Child Experts Say. Being a parent I was keenly interested in this topic.

I was appaled and shocked by this one statement "Under President Bush (news - web sites)'s leadership, ... more children than ever have health insurance through SCHIP...". That's utter bullshit. The SCHIP (State Child Health Insurance Program) has dropped thousands and thousands of children this year alone. This article written in August 2004 discusses the issues of cost cutting changes in the Texas SCHIP program and how it is affecting people. Dental and vision have been cut out of the program. Mental health benefits have been slashed as well.

The saddest statement in this article is "One of the most distressing things about what's happened with our program is that virtually all of the decline in enrollment of SCHIP children in Texas has been among the lowest-income families," - read that again - decline in enrollment amont the LOWEST-INCOME families. Maybe I'm confused, but wasn't SCHIP developed to help the lowest-income families?

SCHIP cuts = Less children getting basic health care. Which means that more people will be bringing children to the emergency room with acute medical issues. That means more cost that gets passed along to the tax payer. Higher taxes or inaequately funded hospitals.

A scary thing to look at is this table with comments about each state's SCHIP plan.

One study says that 8.5 million low-income children go withough health insurance. Sad, sad, sad.

I'll be considering this issue when I go to vote this November.