CATO: Sinking SCHIP (on purpose)

[sandnsea]

Wow. These are some sick fucks. There might be ten families in the country that earn $72,000 a year and get some miniscule benefit, but the majority of low income working people can't even apply for medical help because of the waiting lists. What kind of asshole has the gaul to say these things. I don't know why these people keep shocking me with their ability to just bald-faced lie and let people die in the process.

"Federal lawmakers are considering legislation that could result in millions more middle income families obtaining health insurance from government. Unfortunately, the debate over expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program is divorced from the reality of who truly needs assistance and the forces that are making health insurance increasingly unaffordable.

SCHIP and its larger sibling Medicaid currently enroll many people who do not need government assistance, including some families of four earning up to $72,000 per year. That is a direct result of federal funding rules that reward states for making more Americans dependent on government for their health care.

Rather than expand SCHIP, Congress should (1) make private health insurance more affordable by allowing consumers and employers to purchase less expensive policies from other states, and (2) fold federal Medicaid and SCHIP funding into block grants that no longer encourage states to open taxpayer-financed health care to nonneedy families. With more Americans able to afford private insurance and no incentive for states to expand government programs beyond the truly needy, federal and state governments could reduce spending on those programs."


http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8697

[Cleita]

1. CATO and many other of those awful neo-con think tanks really need

to be challenged. They are the reason we are being destroyed as a nation. I wish I knew how it could be done. Forcing them to be honest would be a start but how does one legislate honesty?

[sandnsea]

9. We need better focus on them for sure

I was putting together the various positions on health care for the web site so that people could see everything that was out there. That's when I ran across this. Yikes. I'm honestly just shocked that what is considered to be a reputable organization could say such a thing and not have the living hell beat out of them the way liberal groups do when they say something goofy.

[Idealism]

2. CATO was a huge free-market Friedman cheerleader

I guess instead of talking about the invisible hand correcting their irrational behavior, they've moved onto hurting under-privileged children who need medical care.

What a nice group of people.

[metapunditedgy]

3. Is "allowing consumers... to purchase less expensive policies from other states" actually code

for "allow health insurers expand beyond state boundaries?" Yesterday a post said that health plans were trying to get outside state regulations and become interstate entities responsible to the Federal gov't, not states.

If so, why couch it in the "less expensive policies" terminology. Would it hurt to be honest, CATO folks?

[sandnsea]

7. It's actually code for deregulation

because many states require insurance cover things like mental health parity and birth control and alcohol/drug treatment. Most of these things started in the states and if you remove them, then all the insurance companies have to do is congregate in Oklahoma or Idaho and we're all fucked.

[kristopher]

11. Not responsible to the Fed, no.

They want to be governed by the laws of the state where they incorporate. That creates among the states a policy fight for the taxes and basically ends us with the most health corporation friendly state setting the standards (all of them) for everyone else.

[Fovea]

4. CATO

Home of epic fail. I am hard pressed to imagine any serious person who thinks they have anything to add to the debate.

[Lithos]

5. Wasn't this group's economic policies soundly discredited recently?

This was one of McCain's talking points which Obama completely destroyed. Allowing private companies to shop states will mean, much like credit card companies, a lowering of standards for the consumer. Increased profit for insurance companies does not automatically mean better care - I wish people would realize that it's a matter of increasing the risk pool which helps people, not reducing it in favor of the healthy (and non-claimants) which is what this plan would end up with.

L-

[sandnsea]

8. Enrolling people who don't need it

Parts of their idiocy was destroyed. I was just shocked at this argument about Medicaid and SCHIP because I personally know that it's complete bullshit. I don't know how they dare to say it when I know so many families who have no health care and no assistance to pay for it.

[katusha]

6. wow I really can't believe this

this asinine trait of the conservatives to stick with a losing game plan reminds me of turkeys drowning in rain storms from looking up.

points one and two above were McCain's health care "solution" I believe, and the nation soundly rejected it in the election, but reality is just another word for irrelevant in their ideology, I guess. Two wave election loses and they want to stick with the same game plan that handed them their asses. Keep it up Conservative strategists, you're doing a heckuva job!

EDITED TO ADD: What, were there no puppies around to kick, so they had to go after sick kids?

[sandnsea]

10. They helped defeat SCHIP

This is from 2007, I was just shocked to see anybody admit they had a plan to take kids off of health care in order to derail expanded government health care.