There They Go Again; Hating on Children

Last night seeing those enthusiastic caucus participants in Iowa was a treat. This morning I see there's yet more proof of how really badly we need to get involved to save this country from criminals in high places.

We all saw the disregard for public interests in the occupied white house fight against increasing the number of children covered by CHIPs, which gives kids not health care but merely the prospect of it through insurance. Now that hand on destruction has reached out to bring down Medicaid coverage as well.

The Bush administration is imposing restrictions on the ability of states to expand eligibility for Medicaid, in an effort to prevent them from offering coverage to families of modest incomes who, the administration argues, may have access to private health insurance.

The restrictions mirror those the administration placed on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program in August after states tried to broaden eligibility for it as well.

Until now, states had generally been free to set their own Medicaid eligibility criteria, and the Bush administration had not openly declared that it would apply the August directive to Medicaid. State officials in Louisiana, Ohio and Oklahoma said they had discovered the administration’s intent in negotiations with the federal government over the last few weeks.

The federal government has leverage over states, because it pays a large share of the costs for Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and states have to comply with federal standards to get federal money. The insurance program was created for children whose families have too much income to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy private insurance.

On Dec. 20, the Bush administration rejected a proposal by Ohio to expand its Medicaid program to cover 35,000 more children. Ohio now offers Medicaid to children with family incomes up to twice the poverty level, or about $41,000 a year for a family of four. The state had proposed increasing the limit to three times the poverty level, to about $62,000.

“Federal officials told us that they would apply the criteria set forth in the Aug. 17 letter to our proposal for expansion of Medicaid,” said Cristal A. Thomas, the Ohio Medicaid director.

The insurance company lobby has been very busy buying GoPervs it appears, and has found a new way to violate the constitution by making law at the executive branch. A letter, a signing statement, another end run to take powers it does not have and that the voters did not give them by the occupied white house is not going to get much attention during the primaries going on. Children don't have lobbyists working for them to keep attention on the lobbyists working against them. Sadly enough, hating on the children gets all sorts of warm fuzzy love from the GOPerv party.

We need to run the criminals out, and as ProfWombat has said, those functionaries with the winger agendas that have been implanted in federal agencies are going to be some trouble to weed out. As they are easy to spot by their rotten attitudes and hatred for poor folks, the job of finding them out won't be so hard. Hopefully, firing for cause should be achievable on the quality of work issue, if not for violation of our laws and constitution.

The health of this country is going to need attention, but the health of its children has to be targeted early on in a legitimate, public servant, executive branch. The damage done will take time to repair.