Spring Break
No relief for children's health care
Andrew Browning
Issue date: 9/24/07 Section: Opinion
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Imagine for a moment you have already graduated from college and landed a decent job. You start a family and have a few kids, and you have a moderate income that allows you to survive in the world but does not really allow you to get ahead. You have two options for health care. One is private coverage, which you cannot afford, and the other is Medicaid, which you do not qualify for because you are not part of the lower class.
That is precisely the spot millions of Americans are in every year. So what do you do if your children get sick? Democrats and Republicans have an answer in the form of a bill that would revamp children's health care. There is only one problem. President George W. Bush has said he plans to veto the bill if it reaches his desk. Vetoing the bill would have immediate consequences on millions of children and would be irresponsible and dangerous.
Bush's main argument against the bill is he does not believe the government should be responsible for providing health insurance for families that can afford private coverage.
He is using his own personal beliefs to make judgments about lower middle class families instead of relying on facts to make decisions. He is assuming these families can afford to purchase private health insurance, but what he fails to realize is the majority of families in the United States are not born into the upper class. They do not have everything handed to them on a silver platter reminiscent of what he had.
The proposed bill would increase funding from $25 billion to $60 billion over a five-year period. To get the money for the increase, Democrats and Republicans propose raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1. Bush, in a press conference on CNN, said he is opposed to this because "it would raise taxes on working people and would raise spending between $35 million to $50 million." Under his assumption, working people are the only ones who smoke, and spending is bad. There is one solution all of the "working people" can agree on. Instead of having another tax that directly affects them, just tax the rich, lazy people. However, one problem with taxing the wealthy people in this country is the likelihood of this bill passing would decrease tremendously.
That is precisely the spot millions of Americans are in every year. So what do you do if your children get sick? Democrats and Republicans have an answer in the form of a bill that would revamp children's health care. There is only one problem. President George W. Bush has said he plans to veto the bill if it reaches his desk. Vetoing the bill would have immediate consequences on millions of children and would be irresponsible and dangerous.
Bush's main argument against the bill is he does not believe the government should be responsible for providing health insurance for families that can afford private coverage.
He is using his own personal beliefs to make judgments about lower middle class families instead of relying on facts to make decisions. He is assuming these families can afford to purchase private health insurance, but what he fails to realize is the majority of families in the United States are not born into the upper class. They do not have everything handed to them on a silver platter reminiscent of what he had.
The proposed bill would increase funding from $25 billion to $60 billion over a five-year period. To get the money for the increase, Democrats and Republicans propose raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1. Bush, in a press conference on CNN, said he is opposed to this because "it would raise taxes on working people and would raise spending between $35 million to $50 million." Under his assumption, working people are the only ones who smoke, and spending is bad. There is one solution all of the "working people" can agree on. Instead of having another tax that directly affects them, just tax the rich, lazy people. However, one problem with taxing the wealthy people in this country is the likelihood of this bill passing would decrease tremendously.
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