St. Cloud Times LTE: Thank You Michele, For Kicking 350,000 Kids OFF Healthcare!
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11:14 PM | Posted in
An LTE in the St. Cloud Times today (October 6th) congratulates Michele Bachmann for voting against the SCHIP Bill and supporting a different bill that would simply extend the program with a much smaller ($5 billion) budget increase. Unfortunately, the letter writer simply latches onto Republican talking points which have been proven patently false. We can and should have a debate over the level of government run programs but we ought not be using hyperbole and outright falsehoods to trick people into believing our side.

Letter: Thanks to Bachmann for voting against health bill
By Carol Fedora-Myrick, Ramsey

Published: October 06. 2007 12:30AM

Kudos to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for standing with her constituents and supporting the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

*Yes, kudos to Michele Bachmann for standing with her constituents when and only when they agree with her agenda. I recently sent an email to Michele expressing my gratitude for her support and asking her if she could show support by sponsoring a bill that actually keeps the current level of children insured. How did Michele stand with this constituent? I am not sure because apparently EIGHT days is too short a time for any type of response. So, kudos to you Michele for ignoring a simple email from one of your constituents!


SCHIP is the nation’s insurance program for children from families earning less than $41,300 per year who don’t qualify for Medicaid. It was set to expire Sept. 30 and Congress just passed a bill that could permanently sink the SCHIP.

Hiding under the political cover of “children,” this new bill qualifies families earning more than $80,000 per year, adults, and, in some cases, illegal immigrants for SCHIP and crowding out the 5.7 million eligible children who still don’t have coverage. It also cuts SCHIP funding by 92 percent in 2012 to lower the bill’s cost, causing millions of children to lose their health coverage in five years.

First, I keep hearing this idea about playing politics with our children. My only assumption is that the letter writer and others mean that Democrats are using SCHIP to simply garner votes come the '08 election. You have to wonder if the letter writer realizes that George W. Bush is using this bill to showcase his new found concern over the budget deficit in an attempt to regain the support of fiscal conservatives. Playing politics is a matter of perspective and certainly not a valid reason to oppose a bill. Also, the bipartisan nature of this bill blows this entire argument out of the water. Senators Hatch (R) and Grassley (R) have come out with some stinging rebukes of this administration.

Second, the letter writer really ought to do some research of her own before latching onto statements made by President Bush. There is no provision within the vetoed bill to require an eligibility requirement increase to $80,000 (if she can find one I would love to see the proof!) and currently 70% of the people enrolled in SCHIP make half the dollar amount touted by the President and the letter writer. Even under the current legislation it is possible to increase the eligibility requirements and 20 states have already done so. Check out the Urban Institute Study of SCHIP.

Finally, the letter writer makes the claim that the bill allows for illegal immigrants to get on the program thereby "crowding out" 5.7 million children that still don't have coverage. This appears to be little more than a scare tactic as I can find no evidence of this claim apart from Republican talking points. Also, you have to wonder why the letter writer would suddenly care about 5.7 million uninsured children when they might be crowded out by illegal immigrants given that she doesn't want to expand the program in the first place. Would she be willing to expand the program if it could be guaranteed that illegal immigrants would not be eligible? Is she sacrificing the health care of 5.7 legal uninsured children in order to keep out even one illegal immigrant?

Worse, this new bill is bad for Minnesota. It funds SCHIP with a new cigarette tax, reducing Minnesota’s state collection of our tobacco health impact fee and draining a revenue source for health care programs.

Thankfully, Bachmann opposed this plan, and she found a positive alternative. She co-sponsored HR 3584, The SCHIP Extension Act, a clean bill to extend SCHIP and increase funding levels to ensure every state’s SCHIP program is fully funded.

That’s something we can all support, and a job well done.

Fully funded? Wrong Again! The Congressional Budget Office estimates that we will need between 13 and 14 billion dollars to keep the current levels of insured children. Therefore, the paltry 5 billion dollar increase offered in this bill actually kicks kids off who are currently using SCHIP. Perhaps as many as 350,000 children will lose coverage under the "clean" HR 3584. If Bachmann were to do a job well done she would, at the very least, sponsor a bill increasing the budget of the program by the amount the CBO has determined will keep those kids in the program insured.
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