Virginia Libertarian

House votes to expand health insurance program for children

 ”How does anyone of us decide, ‘You will have health care and you will not,’ in a country as great as ours when you are talking about children,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said Tuesday night in a speech on the House floor.

I’ll tell you how - YOU DON’T.  If someone ones to buy health care then that is their decision, not the government’s to make for them.  “But the children!” they scream!  What did the children do before there was health insurance?  Why, the same thing we should all be doing today, paying your own bills.  What we’re buying today isn’t health insurance, but a health care payment plan.  A lot of people out there want to pay $x per month to get all the health care they want.  And that’s fine, if you want to do that then go buy that plan, but government has not place fixing prices for those plans.  The private market should be handling that.  That way, if you only want catastrophic (actual health insurance), then you would be able to buy that plan as well, but government has to get it’s fingers in and screw with things.  Why?  Power, pure and simple.  If they control your access to health care, through forcing you to purchase one of their approved plans, and they control what doctors you can see, and what specialists you get referrals to, and then they make it illegal to pay privately, why they then control you.

Speakers:
Sam Brownback, Member (R - KS), U.S. Senate
Rudolph Giuliani
Mike Huckabee
Duncan Hunter
John McCain, Member, U.S. Senate (R-Ariz.)
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney
Tom Tancredo

Fox News hosted this Republican presidential candidate debate in Durham, North Carolina. Brit Hume moderated the debate.

MR. HUME: Let’s get started. We will cover a number of issues tonight, but first a political question about the man who isn’t here and will not even announce his candidacy for president until tomorrow. I’m talking, of course, about Senator Fred Thompson.
(more…)

Feds Reject NYs Bid to Insure More Kids

The Bush administration demonstrated Friday it will strictly adhere to new guidelines that limit the scope of a popular childrens health insurance program. It rejected an application from New York to let more middle-income families participate.
The administration issued its guidelines just three weeks ago. Democrats and governors from both parties have said the rules are misguided and will result in more uninsured children.The guidelines require that a state assure the federal government that it has already enrolled at least 95 percent of poor children in public health programs when expanding eligibility to higher-income children. Poor children in this instance are families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level - $34,340 for a family of three.

Wow, the Feds got something right for a change.  How often do you hear about the fed denying any program claiming to be “for the children”?  Not very often I tell you.  Now, if they would only roll the entire SCHIP program back…