HOUSE DEMOCRATS PASS HEALTH INSURANCE FOR NEEDY CHILDREN OVER OBJECTIONS FROM BIG HMOs, BIG TOBACCO AND THEIR REPUBLICAN PUPPETS

Earlier today we looked at Giuliani's typically Republican pseudo proposal for solving the very real health care crisis in this country. Giuliani's approach, identical to Bush's, is to further enrich big corporations that offer little or no value to people in need of medical treatment and no value to people providing care (doctors). HMOs, unhealth insurers, Big Pharma... putting billions of dollars into the pockets of the managers of this corporate entities-- who in turn bankroll Republican politics-- is the GOP approach to the crisis in health care.

Today the Democratic-led House took a different approach. They passed legislation that would add 6 million lower-income children to a health insurance program while cutting back on corporate welfare for HMOs. The Democratic plan shifts money from corporations to doctors and from the well off to the indigent. "The decade-old SCHIP program is designed to subsidize the cost of insurance for children whose families earn too much to participate in Medicaid, but not enough to afford private health insurance. Through federal waivers, however, the program has expanded in many states to include middle-income children and adults, prompting Republicans to argue that it has morphed into a backdoor way to extend government-provided health care to an ever-increasing population of Americans."

The legislation sparked a bitterly partisan health care battle on the eve of Congress' monthlong summer recess.

A raucous debate over the measure-- filled with parliamentary fireworks by angry Republicans-- engulfed what is otherwise a broadly supported program to insure working poor kids in a larger argument over whether the government or the private sector should provide health insurance to the nation's most vulnerable populations.

A more limited, $35 billion expansion of the children's health care program without broader Medicare changes appeared headed for a bipartisan endorsement in the Senate by the end of the week, despite another threatened veto. Bush has proposed spending half as much on the program over the next five years.

Instead Bush intends to veto the bill. HR 3162 passed 225-204. Ten of the most reactionary Democrats abandoned their party and voted with the Republicans: Dan Boren (OK), Jim Cooper (TN), Joe Donnelly (IN), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Bob Etheridge (NC), Baron Hill (IN), Jim Marshall (GA), Mike McIntyre (NC), Heath Shuler (NC), and Gene Taylor (MS). Four are freshmen-- all across the board reactionaries, routinely supporting Bush and the Republican agenda-- and all 4 were proudly recruited by Rahm Emanuel: the 3 wingnuts from Indiana plus Shuler. The only Republicans to vote for children's health care were the newly liberated Ray LaHood (IL) who told the GOP to kiss off and is resigning plus 4 petrified fake moderates who have rubber stamped Bush's whole toxic agenda and are now fearful that they will lose their seats next year: Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Mike Ferguson (NJ), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), and Chris Shays (CT).

Beyond health care for children, though, the measure reflected dueling Democratic and Republican health care priorities, especially on how to cover the nation's seniors, a potent voting bloc. Democrats have long worked to bolster government-provided coverage for seniors under Medicare, while Republicans have favored giving private companies incentives to insure them.

To help pay for the SCHIP increase, Democrats dipped into federal payments to Medicare HMOs, which they argue drive up premiums for seniors in traditional Medicare by inflating the cost of care. Officials estimate the government pays an average of 12 percent more to these private plans than it does for traditional coverage.

Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, called the Medicare HMO overpayments "a great injustice," and said Democrats were determined to "stop that evil practice."

...The rest of the increase would be financed by a 45-cent-per-pack cigarette tax increase.

Tobacco industry lobbyists were behind much of the Republican rage over the bill which take a small step in the inevitable direction of universal health care. Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, said, “Today’s debate comes down to this: Do you favor big tobacco or children?”