07-09-01
BUSH'S BACK-DOOR BOOGIE

Forty-three million people in this country have no health insurance.

Though it's a true statement, it's not one that causes people to riot in the streets - and not just because we're a wee bit distracted by annoyances such as having our democracy stolen, or the Bush regime's hope of eradicating Social Security, or the impending doom of possible Supreme Court nominations. Most people who don't have health insurance have been told in a roundabout way that it's their own fault. After all, this is the land of opportunity! If you don't own your own house and drive a nice car and sit on nice furniture and skip merrily to the doctor every time you feel a bit peaked, why then, you just haven't been working hard enough!

And people who do have insurance don't quite realize what it's like for those of us who don't. They probably don't realize that if we have a nagging cough that just won't go away, or a weird little lump somewhere, or mysterious headaches that just seem to worsen as time passes, or any other number of ailments that don't impair our ability to continue our daily life, we don't go to the doctor about it. They may not understand why some of us tell our children that a sprained ankle isn't reason enough to go to the hospital, or why we go a bit pale when the school calls to say that our kid needs a doctor's note to explain his or her absence. They might even assume that we simply don't care about our own health, and are pretty shoddy parents to boot. But the fact is that we simply can't afford to go to the doctor unless there is no other recourse. We don't skip doctor visits and dental visits because we'd rather gamble the money away during a trip to Vegas, or because we really want that nice new set of patio furniture from Wal-Mart...we skip the visits because there is no money to pay for them.

Bush has done a marvelous job of confirming what I already knew - to wit, that he doesn't give a tinker's damn for the uninsured and - further - that he remains deliberately clueless as to what "choices" we face when it comes to health care. On the fourth of July, he talked about Cheney's neverending health problems and stated that Cheney was "setting a good example" by getting costly medical treatment. That's a bit like telling Americans that a mom who sends her kids to a costly private school is "setting a good example"...it may well be a GOOD thing, but it's a thing most of us can never afford to do, and how can something be a good example if we are prevented from ever following it?

Lest this sound like the opening notes of a self-pity symphony, I'll move on to my main point:

George W. Bush has decided to institue a new policy providing federally-funded health coverage for certain people.

"Hey," you might say, "That sounds pretty good! Maybe this guy is compassionate after all!"

Um, no.

The "certain people" Shrub wants to "help" are...the unborn.

Under the new policy the right-wing regime is proposing, which in essence is a back-door method of attacking Roe v Wade, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) -- and let's not forget to thank President Clinton for CHIP, and let's also not forget that Bush fought tooth and nail to keep poor Hispanic children in Texas from being covered by it -- would extend coverage to unborn children.

CHIP was created because many people who don't qualify for Medicaid can't afford health insurance - which is basically a "DUH!" explanation, because why else would 43 million people be uninsured? Shrub's proposal would enable pregnant women who aren't eligible for Medicaid to receive prenatal care, which sounds like a good thing...BUT.

The coverage wouldn't go to pregnant women...it'd go to their unborn children. It's an important distinction, and the very fact that they want to specify fetuses as the recipients, rather than pregnant women, is proof positive that their coy little denials regarding whether or not this is yet another right-wing trick to undermine abortion rights are outright lies.

Either a fetus is a person or it isn't; you can't be a person in one sense, and a non-person in another. You can't be a person just some of the time. And if fetuses become "people" in the sense that they can receive federally-funded health coverage, then you'd better believe that we'll soon have a Supreme Court say "Whoops! Lookee here, the unborn are people after all, and we ought not to go about killing them!"

It's the sleaziness of the whole thing that sickens me most. The regressives are such damned cowards that they won't come right out and fight against reproductive choice, because they're not complete fools and they know that A) the majority of the American people disagree with them and B) the majority of the people who disagree with them can and will be LOUD if they try to overturn Roe v Wade. So instead, they push their dirty little policies forward, such as the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and now the plan to ignore the forty-three million uninsured people in America and instead extend coverage to the those who haven't even been born yet.

And it's important to keep in mind that the term "fetus" is not really an accurate term when discussing the proposal; you can bet they'll want to make the qualifying "age" earlier than three months if at all possible.

What's also sickening is that many pregnant women NEED health coverage, and Bush's proposal is going to HURT their chances of getting it.

Here's the thing: if the regressives really gave a damn about people, they'd push for a non-controversial policy that extended coverage to more pregnant women. They don't think for a minute that progressives are going to sit back idly while they try to slip anti-chocie legislation in through the back door. My guess is that as more and more people hear of this, there'll be such a fuss that the plan will be dead in the water...and so will the chance of coverage for pregnant women who can't afford insurance. And, well, gee, let's follow this to its logical conclusion...if a woman isn't wild about the idea of being pregnant in the first place, because she's already got three kids and is working two jobs and can barely pay the rent, not being able to afford prenatal care might be the deciding factor in whether or not to have the child.

So don't think for a minute that Shrub has any compassion. This is yet another way of screwing the American people...by trying to divert funds which could be used to help the uninsured and trying to strip away women's reproductive rights. The Crawford Clown isn't out there trying to find a way to cover the approximately ten million uninsured children in this country. He's not out there trying to find a way to cover their mothers. He's stated that he may well veto the proposed Patient's Bill of Rights (flashback time - let's not forget that Bush tried to take credit for the Patient's Bill of Rights in Texas, when in fact he fought it as hard as he fought giving CHIP coverage to poor Hispanic children) because he doesn't like the idea of patients having more rights than HMOs.

He's proposing legislation that has a snowball's chance in hell of getting through -- and why? Well, he needs to throw a few crumbs to the rabid anti-choice brigade, because they've been whining an awful lot lately. And hey, he's a gambling sort - it MIGHT just get through, and then a complete ban on abortions would start looking less like an impossible obstacle and more and more like a messy little detail that his buddies on the USSC can tidy up.


~Rose




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