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January 26, 2009
Exclusive: Federal Children’s Health Insurance Expansion is a Trojan Horse
The original purpose of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), introduced in 1997, was to provide health care coverage for the children of families making too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but with too little income to purchase private insurance. SCHIP began as a safety net –a compassionate use of taxpayer dollars for American children with demonstrable need.
The SCHIP expansion, legislated by the United States House of Representatives, passed by the Senate Finance committeeand ready for a full Senate vote in the coming weeks, is a Trojan Horse containing government mandated socialized medicine that encompasses the middle class and executes the demands of ethnocentric minority organizations, the United States Chamber of Commerce and the powerful hospital lobby.
SCHIP will nearly double in cost over the next decade with an additional price tag of $75 billion. No doubt a low estimate as cost projections for government programs always fall short due to their inherent waste and inefficiency. Cigarette taxes are the designated source of revenue for the increase in eligible children and the addition of pregnant women to the program. The Heritage Foundation estimates 22.4 million new smokers would need to be recruited by 2017 to fulfill this promise. Taxes and even more crippling federal debt will no doubt make up the shortfall. This latest “bailout” of the middle class and non-citizens will cause working Americans to be taxed twice – once on the federal level and again on the state level.
Under the SCHIP reauthorization and expansion legislation, H.R. 2, passed in the House of Representatives on January 14, 2009, the children of families of four making up to $63,000 in income and pregnant women 300% above the federal poverty level, will now be eligible for coverage. This adds an additional 4.1 million children to the 7 million already covered.
The federal government gives SCHIP dollars out as block grants which the states must match with tax revenues. States may get permission to increase the level to 400% above the poverty line, or up to $80,000 plus per year. According the The Galen Institute, a family making $100,000 per year may be eligible by the use of "income disregards", a subtraction of yearly costs for such things as utility bills, mortgage payments and even food costs.
The SCHIP expansion includes a "contingency fund" for a 'bailout' of the states that mismanage SCHIP dollars!
The SCHIP expansion will be an impediment to health care services for the children of low income, uninsured American families. There is no provision for these children to go to the front of the line for the finite tax dollars allotted by states for SCHIP. Even the State Children's Health Insurance Program is a deceiving title as, according to Investor's Business Daily, 10% of “children” now enrolled are adults. The program will now expand to include pregnant legal and non-citizen women.
A majority of presently uninsured children are not enrolled in SCHIP. Under the new expansion, the program will become available to those who quantifiably could afford private insurance and therefore have a vested interest in what they see as "free" health care services. Private insurance will be “crowded out.” The poorest children will be eclipsed by the rush of newcomers to a program with a cap on the funding available and limited access to a decreasing number of providers. Care provider reimbursements are being cut to the extent physicians cannot cover overhead and malpractice insurance. The pediatrician will face extinction in the same way general practitioners have under decreasing Medicare payments.
The Senate and House versions of the bill force the states to use a Social Security number as the only identification of legal citizenship necessary to obtain SCHIP funding. This provision substantially limits the ability of states to determine legal residency of participants targets the illegal alien population and opens the door for massive fraud. This measure may lead to an increasing amount of identity theft. Indeed, with a lack of immigration law enforcement and insecure borders, this “bailout” will be a massive magnet for illegal aliens. Americans may be providing health care to violent criminal aliens crossing our borders from the unstable state of Mexico.
The United States House of Representatives has chosen to waive the five year waiting period for legal immigrants entering the country to receive taxpayer funded health care for the first time in 100 years. Legal pregnant immigrants and their non-citizen children would be able to participate in SCHIP. Gone will be the pledge made by sponsors of new immigrants to insure these individuals do not become a financial burden on American citizens. The National Council of La Raza, "The Race", is forefront in making these demands. The comparable Senate bill created and passed in the Senate Finance Committee on January 15th does not include this provision but that does not insure it will not be a part of the final bill. The cost to American taxpayers: 3.9 billion over the next 10 years according to John Gever of MedPage today. In all likelihood, soon taxpayers will be footing the bill for interpreters for non-English speaking patients.
And, you can bet The National Council of La Raza and other radical ethnocentric groups will have organized efforts for making sure noncitizens are signed up immediately upon passage of the bill.
Despite propaganda to the contrary, this growth in coverage is a tool to increase the dependency of millions of Americans on government mandated health care, a payback to ethnocentric groups for helping to elect Barack Obama and a majority Democrat Congress, and a shifting of the burden of private insurance fees from businesses to taxpayers, an expense reduction demanded by the increasingly influential United States Chamber of Commerce lobby. The text of the expansion legislation includes a protectionist measure for the powerful hospital lobbies. The provision halts the development of more physician run hospitals that provide quantifiably more cost effective, efficient high-quality care. Physician run hospitals are a threat to the existence of the plethora of mismanaged hospitals. Buried in SCHIP is the provision that no new physician run hospitals may open and existing ones must survive scrutiny and get approval from the Health and Human Services Secretary before expansion.
The Congress is anxious to send the SCHIP Reauthorization and Expansion to the President's desk. President Obama looks forward to signing this bill as one of his first actions as president. Obama and the Congress will call it “change” for the good, but the American people will recognize how little they care about the poor, uninsured American families.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Carolyn Cooke is an American citizen activist committed to the preservation of a sovereign United States.
The SCHIP expansion, legislated by the United States House of Representatives, passed by the Senate Finance committeeand ready for a full Senate vote in the coming weeks, is a Trojan Horse containing government mandated socialized medicine that encompasses the middle class and executes the demands of ethnocentric minority organizations, the United States Chamber of Commerce and the powerful hospital lobby.
SCHIP will nearly double in cost over the next decade with an additional price tag of $75 billion. No doubt a low estimate as cost projections for government programs always fall short due to their inherent waste and inefficiency. Cigarette taxes are the designated source of revenue for the increase in eligible children and the addition of pregnant women to the program. The Heritage Foundation estimates 22.4 million new smokers would need to be recruited by 2017 to fulfill this promise. Taxes and even more crippling federal debt will no doubt make up the shortfall. This latest “bailout” of the middle class and non-citizens will cause working Americans to be taxed twice – once on the federal level and again on the state level.
Under the SCHIP reauthorization and expansion legislation, H.R. 2, passed in the House of Representatives on January 14, 2009, the children of families of four making up to $63,000 in income and pregnant women 300% above the federal poverty level, will now be eligible for coverage. This adds an additional 4.1 million children to the 7 million already covered.
The federal government gives SCHIP dollars out as block grants which the states must match with tax revenues. States may get permission to increase the level to 400% above the poverty line, or up to $80,000 plus per year. According the The Galen Institute, a family making $100,000 per year may be eligible by the use of "income disregards", a subtraction of yearly costs for such things as utility bills, mortgage payments and even food costs.
The SCHIP expansion includes a "contingency fund" for a 'bailout' of the states that mismanage SCHIP dollars!
The SCHIP expansion will be an impediment to health care services for the children of low income, uninsured American families. There is no provision for these children to go to the front of the line for the finite tax dollars allotted by states for SCHIP. Even the State Children's Health Insurance Program is a deceiving title as, according to Investor's Business Daily, 10% of “children” now enrolled are adults. The program will now expand to include pregnant legal and non-citizen women.
A majority of presently uninsured children are not enrolled in SCHIP. Under the new expansion, the program will become available to those who quantifiably could afford private insurance and therefore have a vested interest in what they see as "free" health care services. Private insurance will be “crowded out.” The poorest children will be eclipsed by the rush of newcomers to a program with a cap on the funding available and limited access to a decreasing number of providers. Care provider reimbursements are being cut to the extent physicians cannot cover overhead and malpractice insurance. The pediatrician will face extinction in the same way general practitioners have under decreasing Medicare payments.
The Senate and House versions of the bill force the states to use a Social Security number as the only identification of legal citizenship necessary to obtain SCHIP funding. This provision substantially limits the ability of states to determine legal residency of participants targets the illegal alien population and opens the door for massive fraud. This measure may lead to an increasing amount of identity theft. Indeed, with a lack of immigration law enforcement and insecure borders, this “bailout” will be a massive magnet for illegal aliens. Americans may be providing health care to violent criminal aliens crossing our borders from the unstable state of Mexico.
The United States House of Representatives has chosen to waive the five year waiting period for legal immigrants entering the country to receive taxpayer funded health care for the first time in 100 years. Legal pregnant immigrants and their non-citizen children would be able to participate in SCHIP. Gone will be the pledge made by sponsors of new immigrants to insure these individuals do not become a financial burden on American citizens. The National Council of La Raza, "The Race", is forefront in making these demands. The comparable Senate bill created and passed in the Senate Finance Committee on January 15th does not include this provision but that does not insure it will not be a part of the final bill. The cost to American taxpayers: 3.9 billion over the next 10 years according to John Gever of MedPage today. In all likelihood, soon taxpayers will be footing the bill for interpreters for non-English speaking patients.
And, you can bet The National Council of La Raza and other radical ethnocentric groups will have organized efforts for making sure noncitizens are signed up immediately upon passage of the bill.
Despite propaganda to the contrary, this growth in coverage is a tool to increase the dependency of millions of Americans on government mandated health care, a payback to ethnocentric groups for helping to elect Barack Obama and a majority Democrat Congress, and a shifting of the burden of private insurance fees from businesses to taxpayers, an expense reduction demanded by the increasingly influential United States Chamber of Commerce lobby. The text of the expansion legislation includes a protectionist measure for the powerful hospital lobbies. The provision halts the development of more physician run hospitals that provide quantifiably more cost effective, efficient high-quality care. Physician run hospitals are a threat to the existence of the plethora of mismanaged hospitals. Buried in SCHIP is the provision that no new physician run hospitals may open and existing ones must survive scrutiny and get approval from the Health and Human Services Secretary before expansion.
The Congress is anxious to send the SCHIP Reauthorization and Expansion to the President's desk. President Obama looks forward to signing this bill as one of his first actions as president. Obama and the Congress will call it “change” for the good, but the American people will recognize how little they care about the poor, uninsured American families.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Carolyn Cooke is an American citizen activist committed to the preservation of a sovereign United States.
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