Rant Cont.

Another group pissing me off are the "elderly" upset that someone other than themselves might get Government provided health insurance. How selfish is it to say you deserve something. but refuse to let anyone else have it? God forbid some part-tiome WalMart worker with two kids should have the same health care opportunities as Sam Walton had. He might have been a billionaire, but he was old. So the Government should give him opportunities that the guy cleaining the floors in one of Sam's stores does not have.

And do you notice that the same people rejecting counseling on end-of-life care were the folks passing legislation in an attempt to make such a decision for Terri Schiavo? Maybe if Terri had had some counseling before her illness, she would have written her desires down and we could have avoided the circus her death became. Why are we so scared to talk of the fact that some people might not want to live hooked up to a machine, and that it would be nice to have some facts provided to them? Just today David Freddoso, a hard core social conservative expressed horror at this pamphlet. OMG!!! Someone might actually learn what various diseases can do to you and plan ahead for various contigincies.

Bush Infatuation Syndrome at the Corner

If you ever had any doubts about the Right Wing's Bush-Infatuation-Syndrome, consider David Freddoso's comment about the Energy Bill. The key quote:

Recall that when President Bush came to office advocating an energy bill, the whole point was to increase the amount of energy available. Given that the pending bill will not make even a single extra KiloJoule available, there is really no reason the American public should care at all whether this bill passes.

Consider what that means. Americans should not care if the energy bill passes because it is not what President Bush advocates. Anything less than the President's goals and programs are simply a waste of time.

Conservative SCHIP Response

I sent a link of my earlier SCHIP post to David Freddoso, who contributes to the Corner. I know nothing about him except that he opposes the SCHIP expansion and writes for the National Review. He responded:

I'd say that parents are in charge of their children, and health care is a private choice. If the govt wants to say otherwise, they can start taking children away from bad parents who make the money and won't insure them.

In fact, the parents have to enroll them anyway if they're going to be on SCHIP, it's not like the kids have any say in it anyway.

I was a bit confused by the last sentence, as I thought SCHIP was meant to be an incentive to enroll your children in a health insurance program and I responded:

No matter who is providing the insurance to the children, a private
company or the Government, the parents have to enroll them. But the
question is who pays. Why not make it cheaper for a financially
reluctant parent to get the child (who has does not have what you call
a "private choice") insurance. Obviously, if a parent is going to
take no action to protect his children, the options are limited. I
just wonder what do we say to children who, through no action on
their own part, have no insurance because of financially strapped or
skinflint parents. Sorry? It seems a pretty meager response.

Freddoso had the simplest (and most confusing) response:

I don't want to subsidize bad parenting, that's all.

I think he misuses the term "subsidize" and said:

Actually, subsidizing bad parenting would be paying people not to
insure their children. What SCHIP subsidizes is good parenting; that
is, insuring your children.

His final response was:

Government pays because they won't -- in that sense, you subsidize bad parenting.

What next? Are we going to give parents a food allowance in case they decide not to feed their kids?

Well I think we do the latter in the form of Food Stamps, WIC, and other programs. But anyway, I think Freddoso's final e-mail was a good example of Right Wing thinking about social programs. I am not suggesting the Government should pay because the parents won't; that would be classic Socialist thinking. I am suggesting the Government pay because the children need health care; that is classic social responsibility. No matter what Freddoso thinks, a responsible community ethic encapsulated in a democratically chosen social program is not the first step to the USSR.

And by the way, I looked up "subsidy." The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as "Monetary assistance granted by a government to a person or group in support of an enterprise regarded as being in the public interest." The enterprise the Government is supporting through SCHIP is health care for children - not bad parenting.