... do it "for the children."
In the opening scene of the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, gigolo Michael Caine is conning a wealthy woman and "resisting" her efforts to lavish money on him so he can "free his enslaved people" who are too proud to take charity. He finally accepts the jewels after she pleads with him to "think of the children." That method still gets used frequently. For example, you could have a 12 year old deliver your party's radio address, or you could have children show up at the White House with Radio Flyer wagons.
Earlier this week, small children pulled red Radio Flyers filled with petitions in support of the plan up to President Bush’s front door.
But the White House didn’t accept the mailbags, so organizers turned the wagons around and said they would deliver the 1 million signatures to Congress instead.
Organizers? Children with wagons have organizers? Who knew?
“We’re taking this on ... as epic a battle as the battle to end the war,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change.
“[Bush’s] opposition to children’s health care will go down as potentially less popular than his war in Iraq or his proposal to privatize Social Security.”
Woodhouse’s group is a part of a coalition that includes progressive groups such as the Service Employees International Union (ed: big labor) and MoveOn.org (ed: far,far left).
Well, despite all that "organization," the President vetoed the expansion of SCHIP, as expected.
It appears Congress lacks the votes to overturn Bush's veto. Though 67 votes in the 100-person Senate would suffice to override a veto, the 265-159 vote on September 25 in the House version is short of the two-thirds majority needed.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said Tuesday that he won't schedule the override vote on SCHIP until next week or later. There is no time limit in the House of Representatives on when to bring the bill up again.
Under the legislation, the program would double -- from 4 million to 8 million -- the number of children covered.
The question isn't how many, but how much. That is, how much can children's health care be used as a blunt instrument to force nationalization of one sixth of the US economy? Many others have written about the details of the SCHIP program, that it was originally designed to cover people children up to 200% of the poverty level, too "wealthy" for Medicare yet not well enough off to afford insurance if an employer doesn't provide it. It has been expanded in a number of states to higher levels of income, and many adults have been scooped into this program "for the children," a situation Mr. Bush partially created, but he wasn't alone.
Director Jason Helgerson said that the state began enrolling adults in SCHIP because it already had a health insurance program for children when SCHIP was approved in 1997. In order to receive its full SCHIP allotment, the state enrolled adults in the program.
Lightning might strike you dead if you turn down federal money that you don't need, I guess. The current kerfuffle over this program was inevitable, given that the health concerns were so intertwined with, and perhaps secondary to, the political concerns. Before you declare yourself fully in favor of the expansion of the SCHIP program, do yourself a favor. See if you have an answer to the questions, "What comes next?" Is there a stopping point?
Aw, heck, it's "for the children."
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