CE Week #6: “Sleepwalking Toward DD-Day”
Congress, creating yet another entitlement, is not at all inhibited by the Law of Holes, which is: When you are in a hole, quit digging.
By George F. Will
Newsweek Last Thursday was 96 days before DD-Day, the day the Demographic Deluge begins. That is Jan. 1, when the first of 78 million baby boomers reach 62, the age at which a majority of Social Security recipients begin to receive that entitlement. Social Security is unsustainable as currently configured, but is a picture of health compared with another middle-class entitlement, Medicare.
On Thursday, the Senate, following the House, voted to create another open-ended middle-class entitlement. Congress is not inhibited by the Law of Holes, which is: When you are in a hole, quit digging.
Although it is the elderly who are devouring the federal budget—and through it, a huge share of the economy’s future production—the State Children’s Health Insurance Program is (mostly) about children, at least ostensibly. But it also is about a deep divide between the parties.
The struggle over SCHIP is an unusual Washington dust-up—one that actually is as portentous as Washingtonians, with their flair for (self)dramatization, say it is. It is a proxy fight over the future of the welfare state, meaning the trajectory of government and the burdens it will place on the economy, which, by its dynamism, must generate the revenues to pay the bills.
SCHIP was created in 1997 by a Republican-controlled Congress. Today’s Democratic-controlled Congress wants to transform its mission. It began as a program whereby the federal government would subsidize state governments in providing health insurance for children from households not poor enough (generally 200 percent above the poverty line) to qualify for Medicaid but not affluent enough to afford to buy insurance. Were it to become law, the new SCHIP would be a long stride toward unlimited federal funds working as incentives for states to expand eligibility to more and more affluent families.
It would immediately include some with incomes 400 percent of the poverty line ($83,000 for a family of four). Over time, its “mission creep” would continue. Mike Leavitt, secretary of Health and Human Services, says that the new SCHIP would enroll 2.8 million more children, but 1.1 million of them would be from families for whom SCHIP had become an incentive to drop their private insurance. To that, some liberals say, sotto voce: Good.
Why? In the perennial tension between the competing values of freedom and equality, conservatives favor freedom, which inevitably increases unequal social outcomes. Liberals’ mission is the promotion of equality, understood as equal dependence of more and more people for more and more things on government.
Liberals increasingly define the public good in terms of the multiplication of entitlements. Conservatives increasingly understand their mission as the promotion of attitudes and aptitudes they think are weakened by that multiplication.
The president proposed a $5 billion increase for SCHIP over five years. In a familiar Washington folk dance, the Senate voted a $35 billion increase, and the House endorsed a $50 billion increase but receded to the Senate sum, which was therefore declared moderate. The increase supposedly would be funded by a 61-cent increase in the cigarette tax.
So, this health legislation depends on a constantly large and renewable supply of smokers—22 million new ones. This “progressive” measure requires a regressive tax (smokers are predominantly and increasingly lower class) levied to expand subsidized health insurance ever upward into the middle class.
The president proposes a plan to give everyone personal ownership of fully portable (not tied to employment) health insurance policies—tax deductions of $7,500 for individuals and $15,000 for families purchasing policies. Liberals complain that this would be an incentive for employers to stop providing coverage. To which conservatives respond: Good.
They say: If we can disentangle health care from the wage system, General Motors can go back to being a car and truck company rather than a health-care provider unsuccessfully struggling to sell cars and trucks fast enough to pay employees’ and retirees’ medical expenses. Some liberals want to preserve the entanglement until business clamors for government to nationalize the one seventh of the economy that is health care.
For philosophic reasons, Democrats wish the bill would become law. For political reasons, they welcome the president’s promised veto, which will preserve for them the issue of Republican beastliness toward “the children.”
It has become a verbal tic for politicians to say that everything they do is “about the children.” This rhetoric of pathos reflects the de-intellectualization of public life—the substitution of sentimentalism for reasoned persuasion. Bill Clinton carried this to comic lengths when, in his first State of the Union address, he noted that “not a single Russian missile is pointed at the children of America.”
Those children-seeking missiles were diabolical. The new SCHIP, which would expand the dependency of middle-class children on government, is not diabolical, but neither is it just “about the children.”
Copyright (c) 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
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It amazes me when I read how the two parties argue over what is best for “the children”. The Democrats seem to be hitting the idea of health equality pretty hard and are trying to turn this idea against the Republican Party. Ironically enough in order to get more money in order for this to go into effect the cigarette tax would increase by sixty-one cents. “So, this health legislation depends on a constantly large and renewable supply of smokers—22 million new ones. This “progressive” measure requires a regressive tax (smokers are predominantly and increasingly lower class) levied to expand subsidized health insurance ever upward into the middle class.” To me this is ridiculous. We try and provide health benefits for the people, yet we strongly rely on their bad health habits to provide them with health care. “In the perennial tension between the competing values of freedom and equality, conservatives favor freedom, which inevitably increases unequal social outcomes. Liberals’ mission is the promotion of equality, understood as equal dependence of more and more people for more and more things on government.” I understand that helping people is a good thing, but helping everyone is asking too much of not only the government, but the American society. The increase in taxes would really affect the nation. I can understand helping the lower class, but trying to help everyone does not seem necessary. America is so strong today because of the citizens’ independence. If we provide equality for everything then our nation becomes dependent on the government’s financial aid.
“For philosophic reasons, Democrats wish the bill would become law. For political reasons, they welcome the president’s promised veto, which will preserve for them the issue of Republican beastliness toward “the children.” It has become a verbal tic for politicians to say that everything they do is “about the children.”’ Politics do not sound sincere at all. If these people really were concerned about “the children” then they would focus more on helping them rather then trying to make their oppressors look like idiots. I’m sure there are some people who really do want to help the kids, but this sounds like another issue, in which the Democrats try and make the Republicans look bad. It’s a political issue attack between the two parties.
Hmm, perhaps I’m not a socialist. The idea of everyone eventually relying on the government for health care sounds neither idyllic nor practical. That opinion may derive from my current mistrust in government, and therefore change later in my life, but right now the concept of universal privatized health insurance sounds all right. I would advocate for government regulations, some set of standards to ensure fairness. There’s the liberal in me: wanting the government to check up on everyone. But it seems to me that if we have federal regulations for working conditions and sanitation and whatnot, privatized health care could work if it had its own set of rules.
As far as the political battle over SCHIP, I agree with Tiara. All this politicking completely misses the mark of helping lower-middle class children. Negotiations over SCHIP have very little to do with kids; the central issue is the scope of government in relation to health care. Wouldn’t it be easier to cut the sentiments and just have a debate about privatization versus nationalized health care?
“The kids” is probably just code for… the next generation. Currently all the old people who are living longer are eating up the budget, right? We’re just costing ourselves more money. That’s what this article is saying to me…
The rising cost of health care is a result of so many people going through the system. So they say “new system now…okay… but…wait a second!”
It’s kind of funny how we’re so caught up in the trap of society… after all, economy is based on ‘attitude’ right? Supply/demand.
Lets all move to Canada, I guess.
This article on SCHIP is interesting and brings up some points that the other related articles didn’t. “For philosophic reasons, Democrats wish the bill would become law. For political reasons, they welcome the president’s promised veto, which will preserve for them the issue of Republican beastliness toward the children.” I found this quote very interesting. It’s very funny and ironic that this is stated because it’s very true. The democrats welcome this because they know that not supporting the needs of these children will hurt the republicans and the support they are looking for. They want the kids to get help, but they know the bill that they proposed will never pass so they rely on the fact that they know the republicans will strike it down, in a way giving the democrats what they want. The sixty one cent tobacco tax is a good idea, but like I said earlier it doesn’t really apply to the children. Also like this article states, most people who buy and use tobacco are in the middle class, this would only also hurt the middle class. It is a good idea though; they just need to find a different way to get the money they need to support the program.
This article opens up my eyes to how much importance is placed on money when one runs for a political office. It is like the saying goes “money is the mother’s milk of politics.” I knew that there was a high importance on money when you run for office but until r read this article I didn’t know exactly how important it was. It seems that if you want to have a shot at winning a big election that you have to be very wealthy, or at least know someone who is very wealthy and is willing to fun your campaign. This does seem unfair though. I thought that our form of government was set up that so any kid can grow up to be the president. I don’t think that this is true. Now, to even be realistically considered winning a big election you have to have numerous T.V commercials along with advertisements and signs and all the other little things. So basically if you don’t have a fortune worth millions, don’t even bother running for office. I guess that this just enforces the fact that we have an “elite class” government. the amount of money that is spent on campaigns now days is crazy, especially when you think about all the money spent by candidates who don’t win.
We have another topic on social security and its not looking good for the Republican Party. Our feral funds are devouring and they say it’s because of the elderly collecting social security. This is true, but they have the right to do so. The problem is that they are not doing anything to help the system. The conservative believe in freedom, which could mean inequality because everyone is out for himself or herself. The liberals want everyone to be equal. The system just can’t work like that. There need to be some middle ground. I think this middle ground as bad as it sound will have to come from the elderly baby boomer. We need to reduce their spending. This will be a little sacrifice for a couple of years until we get the system built back up. Then we could also raise the social security tax by half a percent. Which wont be notice, but will help drastically. What these republicans want to do is make social security a private thing. Because they want to conserve funds, but companies are already having a hard enough time putting into social security.
Another issue is the health insurance that is supplied by the government. The people below the poverty level don’t get it though. With the democrats Dominating Congress they have made it easier for the poor to get health insurance. The middle and upper class look at this like we have to pay for them. In actuality if we pay for them now it cost less than if they were to go into the E.R.
There were alot of great and bad ideas in that article. The problem with the great ones is that they are too far of a leap to ever become realistic. Like the article mention that they wanted employers to stop providing health care because then the companies could run better and then people could just find there own health care that would work better for them. Well thats a great idea in theory but you could never convince the majority (heck even 30 percent) of America to get rid of there health care there employer provied them and make them find there own. Most people look and a job and pick it because it has good benefits which include good health care. Another potentially great idea mentioned was the government should nationalize health care. If we just ignored that fact the alot of people have problems with public health care and usualy want private health care we would still have a ton of other problems to deal with. Most people are not happy if the government has a monoply of anything. So even if the system was set up perfect many people would not support it just because the government would have control over it and could potentially screw it up at any minute.