S-chip

I've gotten behind on this blog so i'm updated it with past blog posts from my myspace account so the date posted will not be in sync with date written.

We've all heard Bush's speeches on "no child left behind" and how we have a responsibility to the poor children of America, but when a bill recently came up to expand government health care to more poor, sick children, he vetoed it as quickly as he did stem cell research. He says that he cares for our children, for our elderly, for us, but his actions don't reflect his words. Luckily in our country the congress can override stupid vetoes. (thank goodness we got a democratic congress) and I, for one, am hoping and praying that they will get the votes necessary to override this particular veto. We will find out tomorrow. I've been watching C-Span all day and I will watch it tomorrow as well so that I can be one of the first to know if our children will stay sick. The bill, if passed into law, will allow 3.4 million children to be added into the S-Chip program. Bush not only vetoed the bill, but plans to CUT funding to the program, eliminating over 800,000 children who are already on the program.

The bill will allow a four person household making less than 84,000 to recieve government assisted health care. Do you realize what 84,000 is to most people? they don't make half that! maybe not even a quarter. The average wal-mart worker makes 12,000 or less a year. You say, yeah, but that's wal-mart. well, in today's economy that's where millions of people work.. places like walmart, kmart, target... service related industries that pay very little and have horrible health care coverage that many people couldn't afford anyway. My husband is a programmer who works in Charlotte and is fairly famous among the programming community, and we don't even make 84K a year. That sounds rich to us, but it's not. It's not even middle class anymore in many communities. The average four person household will pay $750 or more per month for health care. Can you afford that? And that's for poor health care. Health care that barely covers wellness checkups. With Calvin's new job we got excellent health care coverage, full coverage. We have to pay 30%, his emplyer pays 70%. Our 30% is 650 a month. Can you imagine if we were paying full price?

Many of the speakers talked about how families with sick children often have to choose between being able to pay the bills and taking their child to the doctor. When children end up getting really sick due to lack of preventative care they go to the emergency room. And how much does that cost? When my son was sick several months ago I had to do just that. I took him to the emergency room and he received IV fluids for dehydration (due to the amount he was throwing up) and I was shocked when the bill came in to see over $1000. For fluids. We NEED this S-chip. Millions of families need this bill to become a law. Our President has failed us. It's up to the congress now. I hope your thoughts and prayers will be out there tomorrow as they're voting.




Update: Can you believe it?! The S-Chip override did NOT pass. That means that there are some people (probably republicans) in congress that thinks it's a BAD idea to help sick children. Congress does, however plan to introduce another bill which will be almost exactly the same. They will keep doing this until it's passed. (which will probably be when a democrat is in the white house). This is a sad, sad day for america. (though not as sad as the day bush won the election)