Even though our country has pioneered many major medical developments, millions of Americans do not have access to needed medical care. The growth of the nation’s uninsured population is about to reach it’s breaking point. With his long awaited promise to veto, President Bush vetoed legislation, State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), that would have doubled the number – from 4 million to 8 million – of low-income children covered.

In a 67-29 vote – enough to override a veto that Bush had promised – the Senate voted to increase spending on SCHIP from about $5 billion to $12 billion each year for the next five. In the House, however, despite the support of 45 Republicans, it still fell short of the two-thirds needed to override Bush’s veto.

Criticism of health care in the United States usually focuses primarily on the millions of Americans who lack health insurance of any kind. There are many reasons why so many Americans are finding themselves uninsured. The decline in the economy over the past few years has resulted in more individuals finding themselves in situations such as being unemployed or underemployed. Each change in employment circumstances has the possibility to affect health insurance benefits. Even if employed, individuals may find that health care benefits are beyond their reach. In poor economic times, employers drop health insurance coverage as a benefit or shift costs to their employees..

Bush claims that the SCHIP bill would divert “scarce funding to higher incomes at the expense of poor families.” At a press conference in September at which he threatened to veto the bill, Bush declared, “Congress has made a decision to expand [SCHIP] eligibility up to $80,000.”

Bush once again used “fuzzy math” to put a spin on children’s health insurance. According to Margaret Carlson:

The measure, in fact, generally limits coverage to families with incomes at 300 percent of the federal poverty level ($61,950 for a family of four.) In places with a high cost of living, about 70 percent of those enrolled would be from families earning less than $24,340.

On August 20, 2007, the Census Bureau reported that the number of uninsured in 2006 had increased by 2.2 million Americans, largely because of a decline in employer sponsored insurance. Of the 2.2 million, 710,000 were children (age 1 and under). Of the uninsured children, almost 70 percent were in families with incomes at 200 percent or more of the federal poverty level. The number of uninsured children age 18 and under grew by 710,000 to reach 9.4 million. SCHIP aims to support the millions of people who fall between the cracks when it comes to health care for their children.

According to USA Today, nationally, more than 15% are uninsured. When it comes to Texas, it really it gets worse, nearly 24% of the population do not have insurance, the highest percentage among the states. Here in Harris County, it is 30%, according to state figures, the highest rate among the nation’s top 10 metropolitan areas.

The state has forfeited more than $900 million in federal money under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) during the past six years because it would not put up 28 cents for each 72 cents in federal aid. Restrictions put in place in 2003 cut about 200,000 children from the program in a state with the highest percentage of uninsured children, nearly twice the national average.

However, his veto comes as no surprise, since he almost vetoed Texas’ CHIP program when he was the governor. What is most inexcusable about the White House stance is what they do not say. The main reason seems to be this:

Schip was supposed to help children from low-income families, but Democrats are now using the program to expand government control of health care and undermine private insurance. To see this plan in action, look no further than the 465-page Schip revelation that Democrats muscled through the House last week.

The truth is Bush and the right-wing establishment is looking out for their friends in the health insurance industry. The argument has been the key issue of this legislative battle. President Bush has argued the expansion is not only large, but it would “crowd out” too many children already privately insured.

According to Janet Trautwein, vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Health Underwriters, claim that the government could more efficiently achieve broader insurance coverage through a subsidy of private insurer plans, beyond existing tax breaks. However, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) research indicates that the Senate and House approaches are among the most efficient plans offered to cover a larger number of uninsured children with the smallest amount of “crowd out.”

Although the Democratically controlled Congress may have been better, it has some consequences. During the House vote on SCHIP, several Democrats voted against the bill. According to Matt Ortega, this has prompted several so-called liberal Blogger, such as Matt Stoller to criticize them publicly for their vote. Ortega points out that Stoller was upset at Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Cleveland, Ohio) for voting against the reauthorization of SCHIP. One would wonder why such hard-core progressive – more so than the political armchair quarterback Matt “Fuck Your Pet Issues” Stoller – would go against the reauthorization of SCHIP. However, if Stoller had looked closely at Kucinich’s vote record he would have noticed that Kucinich was not against the original intent of the bill, but decided to vote against SCHIP when the Democratic leadership decided to omit the provision that would exclude children of legal immigrants and pregnant women from receiving health benefits.

“I cannot support legislation which extends health coverage to some children while openly denying it to other children,” Kucinich said. “This legislation is woefully inadequate: and I will not support it.

“Legal immigrant children deserve the same quality health care as other children receive. It is Congress’ responsibility to address the main difficulties that prevent legal immigrant children from gaining access to health care. Today, we did exactly the opposite.

So who is Stoller fooling. If he is wanting to play who is more progressive, Kucinich has Stoller beat, hand down. But what do you expect from a person who considers conservative activist and lobbyist Grover “Drown it in a bathtub!” Norquist as their “political hero.”

Kucinich was protesting the Democratic leaderships illogical move to omit the Legal Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act (ICHIA) provision, which would have included allow children of legal immigrants and pregnant women Medicaid benefits.

Currently legal immigrants in the US are barred from getting federal health benefits during their first 5 years in this country. The immigrants who would receive benefits under the ICHIA provision are legal taxpayers in the US. Low-income immigrants have extremely high levels of employment, however most jobs available to the offer few benefits, including health insurance. Additionally, immigrants have less job security than the average citizen does. This not only makes it harder for legal immigrants to get health insurance but to keep it as well.

So why did the Democrats pull it off the table, simple, as Latina Lista stated, it had to do with IMMIGRANTS.

That is where the problem comes in; discussing of “children in immigrant families” as a homogeneous group is misleading because these children are extremely diverse. Immigrant families come from every country in the world, speak a multitude of languages, and bring a host of cultural traditions to their new homeland. Most children in immigrant families are US-born and therefore are native citizens whose parents are immigrants, but many other children are foreign-born citizens.

One of the most common barriers, immigrant families’ are barred from receiving health coverage, other barriers include the current federal eligibility rules and the fear of jeopardizing their immigration status. Regardless of immigration status, children from low-income families often lack adequate health insurance. However, immigrant children are uninsured in even greater numbers than their low-income peers, a disparity that has increased over time. One reason for this disparity is that immigrant parents hold low-wage, poor-quality jobs that do not offer employer-sponsored insurance coverage, so their families lack access to private insurance coverage.

If the Democratic Party really wants to know why they lost this Latino vote, all they need to do is look back to historical record starting back in 1996. Let’s not forget how the face of the Democratic Party Bill Clinton screwed a lot of immigrants back then. Sure, they are eligible after 5 years, but during those 5 yrs, it gets ingrained in them that THEY do not qualify. It does not matter what argument is made, THEY still believe they do not qualify and may of them don’t believe it either. Once again, lets screw them one more time.

Children of immigrants represent a growing share of all American children, and their families are increasingly dispersed across the US. To be upfront, it is time for the Dems to screw their courage to the sticking-place and start protecting and preserving the public health by providing access to health care for these families.

The only way to expand affordable, quality care to everyone in the US is to get the profit motive out of healthcare. The American public deserves a system that prioritizes their health over shareholder profits. America’s doctors should be at the forefront demanding affordable care for everyone, not helping greedy companies get the big bucks from the government.

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