Health Care in America
Bush Vs. Dean
Two years into President Bush's term, the damage he has done to the nation and the world is incalculable. On issue after issue, Bush does what's good for big corporations and right-wing extremists at the expense of the public. The Wage Slave Journal offers this scorecard to help you keep track of all of the evil deeds Bush commits and, more important, to provide a record for your perusal when November 2004 rolls around. Be sure to bookmark this page; Bush keeps it full.
The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights keeps an even more extensive list on issues.
Where we are on health care- Nationally, 30.1 percent or 74,706,000 under the age of 65 have no health insurance. The highest percentage was reported in Texas, with 39.9 percent, while South Dakota had the lowest, at 21.7.
As Congress debates whether additional funding should be given to states to help pay for their cash-strapped Medicaid programs, a report issued today reveals that the Bush Administration's alternative to such funding would cause millions of seniors, children, and people with disabilities to lose health coverage. According to the report, the Bush Administration's alternative proposal-which would convert Medicaid to a block grant-would result in an almost half a trillion dollar loss of public health funds over the next 10 years.
Bush's shortcomings on health care come as no surprise to Texans. As governor, he directed that a $6.5 billion budget surplus be used primarily for property tax relief and public school improvements...rather than tackle Texas' poor health record. In a state with one of the nation's worst public-health records, Bush might have used the surplus to deal with stubborn problems:
* Of the 50 states, Texas had the second-highest percentage of adults and children who lacked health insurance. Only Arizona's percentage was higher, according to 1998 figures by the Kaiser Foundation.
* More than 27 percent of adults ages 19 to 65 lacked health insurance compared with about 20 percent nationwide.
When the Texas House was under a Democratic majority, what it shoved down Bush's throat was health insurance eligibility for a then-estimated 500,000, rather than 300,000, children. It was a big loss for Bush, who spent much of the early session fighting for the lower number...Bush did sign the bill. And he can claim to have supported it. But he drew the eligibility line at 150% of the federal poverty level -- which excluded some 200,000 children of working-poor families from buying low-cost health insurance -- an eligibility level that few states even considered. Yet the governor of the state with the second highest number of uninsured children in the nation was taking a hard line on 1.4 million kids who are often shut out of doctors' offices.
The bottom line seems to be that Bush worked pretty hard to cover as few kids as possible under the CHIPs program. To say that he "embraced [the program] as an opportunity to help deliver health coverage to thousands of uninsured children" isn't just a stretch. It’s lie # 6.
Howard Dean's focus on Health Care
Governor Howard Dean's plan to extend health insurance to all Americans is based on the lessons he learned as a practicing physician and as a governor. As Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean had an unsurpassed record of success in broadening health insurance coverage, achieving the highest rate of coverage for any state of both children and low-income people. The Dean plan offers health insurance to all uninsured Americans, at well under half the cost of President Bush's tax cuts.
In fact if you subscribe to Howard Dean TV http://howarddean.tv (yes, ALL DEAN, ALL THE TIME), the first five segments to download all deal with Dean's plan for health care.
