You’ve got to hand it to the President, just when you thought that his administration couldn’t be more selfish and greedy, couldn’t become more out-of-touch with what average Americans face each day, the boy outdoes himself. His latest casualty is sick kids.
On October 3rd, our illustrious President vetoed a bi-partisan expansion of health insurance coverage under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Known by the acronym S-CHIP, the program would have changed eligibility requirements allowing an additional 3.8 million children, most from working poor and low income middle class families, to receive healthcare. States and the federal government jointly finance the program.
Just to provide you with the Cliff Notes of what happened, President Bush cast the fourth veto of his presidency against allowing poor kids to see a doctor. And this is a President who wears his religion of his sleeve.
The tab would have been $35 billion over a ten-year period. That comes in at $1.08 per kid each year. He said that it was unnecessary and that we couldn’t afford it. Yet every time the President burps, the Congress ponies up another $50 billion for the War in Iraq.
You don’t have to be a moral philosopher, just a person with a heart to know that it is immoral to place the tools of war ahead of the healthcare of children.
Today, I am embarrassed to be an American.
