CR Nation

Republicans support health care for poor children. Either for moral, philosophical, or political reasons, they all do. Indeed there is a conservative philosophical argument (and counter argument) that can be made that providing government health care for children is within the proper scope of government authority.

However, SCHIP is a bad bill and no matter how persuasive a philosphical argument may be it is never persuasive enough to overcome the factual existence of bad legislation. The political philosophy and the its tanglibe manifestation in this bill just don’t match up.

This is why Republicans voted against the bill. Specifically the bil –

(1) Covers children that are not poor
(2) Covers children that are not citizens, i.e. illegal immigrants
(3) Seeks to facilitate the transfer of children from private insurance coverage to government coverage
(4) Raises taxes on cigarettes, which is a product most used by those this bill is supposed to help

Democrats support all these things, but the American people don’t, so they have to use a smoke screen to pass the bill and look good doing it. The Democrats have chosen young, sick children for their smoke screen (see video below). That doesn’t make me young, but it does make me sick.