Who cares about kids...

Apparently, not George W. Bush. See also this article by MediaMatters about inconsistent coverage of Bush's statements and stance.

From the MediaMatters article:

"...the Congressional Budget Office estimated in May that 'maintaining the states' current programs under SCHIP would require funding of $39 billion for the 2007-2012 period and $98 billion over the 2007-2017 period -- increases of $14 billion and $48 billion, respectively, over the baseline spending levels.'"

And both articles note that Congress is attempting to budget an additional $35 billion and Bush is saying only $5 billion more.

And let me remind you all, since it seems to have gotten lost somewhere in the shuffle, that we're talking about insuring children. This is not Universal Healthcare, though that would be infinetely simpler. We're talking about ensuring that children have access to preventative care, vaccinations, routine check ups, medicines, and antibiotics.

Kids. Children who cannot be accused of being lazy, itinerant or having knowingly entered this country illegally. Children. Babies. The next generation.

And he's going to veto the budget bill if Congress attempts to adequately fund the program so that children won't die of things that never, ever even entered into my world when I was a kid. Mumps, measles, allergies and asthma (inhalers aren't free...neither are epi-pens). Routine infections that insured children handle easily with a round of relatively low-dose antibiotics can threaten un-insured children's life-long health when the bacteria in their ears or nose or throat multiply and move to even more vital organs.

Ironically enough, reliable, researched support for SCHIP can be found from a source that one could hardly be called liberal - Brigham Young University professor Richard Butler. In conjunction with researchers from the University of Arizona, Professor Butler published an article in Pediatrics. In the article they show how it actually costs the taxpayers more money to leave children un-insured than to insure them with SCHIP. You can read a slightly more non-MD-friendly article about the article here.

Not that this shocks me at all. Preventative care is infinitely less expensive than a full-blown medical emergency- the only way that most un-insureds (yours truly included... knock on wood) get treatment: in the Emergency Room.

So, to review today's staggeringly obvious point: Ensuring that all children in America are insured is just the right thing to do, but if that's not a good enough reason there's also the fact that it's the fiscally responsible thing to do.

So there. Here's one pinko-commie-wingnut-socialist-nazi-Liberal who's got it over on the Republicans on morals and spending. Shock. And. Awe.