09.25.07
Bush Shows His True Colors, A Compassion-Less Conservative
In case you haven’t read it yet state Rep. Garnett Coleman wrote an Op-Ed over the weekend, Ideologues seek to cut children’s health plan, about the need for the federal SCHIP bill that president Bush has said he will veto. If we had a compassionate president he would be much more worried about insuring uninsured children than insuring insurance companies profits.
The president vows to veto the bipartisan effort to provide more children with health care.
What’s extraordinary is why he says he’s doing it. He’ll veto the bill and put kids at risk TO PROTECT PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES.
Right, the president’s objections are “ideological.” He believes that a broad expansion of the children’s health program will lead more people to rely on government health care and not purchase health insurance from private companies.
Now most of the parents of the children that would benefit from the bill can’t afford health insurance — that’s why the children are uninsured. So Bush’s fears are unfounded.
But even so, faced with a choice of providing children with health care or protecting the profits of private insurance companies, the president chooses the latter.
Nothing more need be said.
That’s pretty damning stuff about our “divider” president. But let’s go back to Rep. Coleman’s Op-Ed, particularly this part:
It’s tragic that some Texans in Washington are pushing failed policies from Texas. When Bush was governor, he supported even more restrictive eligibility standards, but the Texas Legislature ultimately forced him to sign a bill that covered more children.
At that time, Gov. Bush cynically remarked to one legislator: “You crammed it down our throats.” In 1999 all we did was provide access to health coverage for children whose parents worked but couldn’t afford it. Now it’s time for Washington, D.C., to do the same, and it’s a shame that Congress may have to “cram it down the throats” of leaders who should have learned better by now.
In other words Bush fought giving health care to poor kids even back then but gave in. I’m sure at that time Turd Blossom was whispering in his ear about what would be best for his presidential run. Taking health care away from poor children and children of the working poor wouldn’t have allowed him to cynically run as an oxymoron, a “compassionate conservative”. This shows why what the president is doing now shows his true colors. Without the worry of another election, and the need to trick the voter in the center into believing he’s for something other than corporations, Bush can now do what he believes - fight to protect insurance companies profits.
No matter the case back then, at this time the president, and the minority that will follow him over the cliff, are with the insurance companies and against insuring more uninsured children. This issue has, despite what the president says and lack of media reporting, wide BI-partisan support and is a no-brainer for passage.
This post form Bill Scheer goes through the politics of whats ahead, Are You For Good Government or Bad Government?
And there’s much more at this post form, Please Lend A Hand For Kids In Need, Fire Dog Lake.
Insuring ALL children should be done, period, end of story.