Teddism.com

The Unites States Congress recently passed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and has been talked and debated about with much fever over the last few weeks in the United States. On both sides, the debate is passionate and heated with a lot of propaganda thrown around. As Representative Gohmert (R) from Texas says at texasinsider.org:

“It is easy for someone to make a legislator look good or bad over a vote on any legislation depending upon which facts the writer chooses to include and chooses to omit. This is especially true with the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill which passed out of the U.S. House last week.”

Not only is this true for a legislator, but also for legislation. For that reason, Teddism aims to give brief information and more importantly the truth about the debate.

Fact
When children are the subject of a political debate, their bests interests are only secondary to winning.

Definition of ‘winning’ in this context: Scoring Political Points.

Background
SCHIP, is a bill that the United States Congress passed in 1997 and expired September 30, 2007. Quoting a September 27, 2007 blog post on Murth’s Truth:

“SCHIP in Washington-speak stands for “State Children’s Health Insurance Program. It’s a program originally created by Republicans in Congress designed to help provide health insurance for low-income children. But in typical Washington fashion, it turned out to be the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent.”

“SCHIP is up for renewal this year. And this year, the Democrats are in charge of Congress. So naturally instead of merely reauthorizing SCHIP, the House voted yesterday to greatly expand the government program, with the ultimate goal of using it as a backdoor means of ushering in Hillary’s national healthcare nightmare.”

The Democrats’ Brief Position on the Issue
All Children should have access to Insurance and expanding this Bill to include essentially all children.

The Republican’s Brief Position on the Issue (the Bush Administration’s) |
By expanding the law to include more children, it is the first step to socializing Medicine, meaning the Government would pay for it.

The TRUTH
Admittedly, that is an incredible generalization; however, the Bill itself is written, as they always are, in exceptionally complicated ways. See for yourself in the Senate version and the House version.

The Truth is that Democrats are trying to politicize Children and Republicans are not communicating their problems with the bill effectively. As such, the Democrats are winning the war for Public Opinion on the issue.

Related Links

- An Article in The New England Journal of Medicine, “Insuring All Children – The New Political Imperative”
- An Excellent summary including FAQs at The National Conferences of State Legislatures