Crossposted from SmokeyMonkey.org and on CongressMatters.com
Both Senators Jon Kyl and John McCain, republicans of Arizona, voted against SCHIP legislation that easily passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis, as it always has. McCain for all his bluster during a presidential campaign about helping people and reforming Washington was just pissed upon again. Here's what my senators (small 's' for these dickholes) voted against:
A bill to amend title XXI of the Social Security Act to extend and improve the Children's Health Insurance Program, and for other purposes.
Yes, my senators have voted against children's health. Want to see why?
Besides being partisan hacks, McCain and Kyl are both basing their rejection of expanding SCHIP, which allows more children to get health care, on fallacious reasoning and half-truths.
Crowd-out
This is an odious myth, the "crowd-out effect". If we make health care too available, then people with private insurance will decide to take the SCHIP coverage over their private insurer, thus crowding out other families from the program. Undoubtedly, this is a pure example of where ideology runs directly into a solid wall of reality and falls on its ass. Seeing the outcome of your ideology (to oppose health care for children), you must realize your argument is deeply flawed. I will explain it to you, senators.
First, the argument is based on this bogus Heritage Foundation report and its finding
that Congress's expansion proposals for SCHIP could cover as many as 2.4 million newly eligible children, but because of crowd out, the ranks of the uninsured would decrease by only 1 million.
Second, the report goes on to claim that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported crowd-out effects on SCHIP. However, I find nothing in either the CBO report on S.275, nor in the CBO report on H.R.2 about crowd-out.
Moreover, getting people health care options is exactly what republicans have been calling for as the magic bullet for bringing down health care costs (when they aren't dismissing the health care crisis entirely). So competition isn't really what it's all about, senators? This is simply an argument against incrementally socializing medicine, standard republican fare.
Tobacco Taxes
But McCain's press release goes on to talk about the more egregious reason to avoid funding children's healthcare.
I am concerned about the crowd out effect but what I find especially alarming about S. 275 is its extreme dependence on revenues generated from increasing tobacco taxes. I cannot agree with the notion that we have to pay for our children’s health care coverage by taxing and banking on the continual existence of the use of harmful tobacco products.
So, McCain somehow believes that voting against providing health care to children is the responsible thing to do because people might quit smoking, and then where would the children be? What a fucking dolt.
Summary
Jon Kyl was so concerned about SCHIP that he didn't bother to explain his vote on his website (yet anyway). So, with such great leadership in Arizona, we are sure to maintain our prized 33rd place on the list of healthy states. Thanks, assholes!
Note
While McCain references S.275 in his statement of January 28th, it is H.R.2 that he voted against on January 29th. S.275 appears to be buried in committee, but it likely the same provisions were in the amendments to H.R.2 passed in the Senate. I have not fully explored that.