The nation's Medicaid directors yesterday told the Bush administration that its new restrictions on the federally funded State Children's Health Insurance Program will limit the number of children covered.
In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt, the National Association of State Medicaid Directors said the new standards reduce flexibility, making it difficult for states to expand coverage.
The Democrat-led Congress is moving to override the new standards and cover families earning several times the national poverty level. Democrats say a country as wealthy as the United States should better care for its children.
Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to shift the nation toward socialized health care.
So it's all quite reasonable, really: the Republicans are simply saying that it's worth it to cut off health insurance to middle-class kids if it means we don't have "socialized medicine," right? So these millions of kids get no more checkups and, if they get sick, their parents (or in some cases, parent) are at the mercy of the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies who have caused 46% of the nation's bankruptcies these last few years, but it's a small price to pay to be able to say our medicine isn't "socialized," right? C'mon, who's with me?
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