Marie Cocco: Republicans Defend Tobacco Giants from Sick Children

[marmar]

from Truthdig:


Republicans Defend Tobacco Giants from Sick Children



Posted on Jul 31, 2007
By Marie Cocco

WASHINGTON—In keeping with Oscar Wilde’s adage that one cannot be too careful in the choice of enemies, congressional Democrats have chosen wisely and well.

Are there two industries in America toward which the public has more animosity than tobacco and managed-care health insurance? They make money either by making people sick (tobacco) or by limiting treatment for those who already are (managed care).

The logic of raising tobacco taxes and curtailing well-documented overpayments to managed-care companies that cover some Medicare patients, then using the funds to provide insurance to children in poor and working-class families, is better than politically perfect. It boosts public health by reducing smoking. It spares taxpayers billions now wasted on propping up corporate insurers rather than treating Medicare patients.

Which is, perhaps, one reason President Bush and Republican leaders in Congress are opposing with increasing stridency what started out as a bipartisan no-brainer: An expansion of coverage under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that was long envisioned to be part of the reauthorization of the program this summer.

Bush began the ideological war against the children’s insurance program—which was crafted in part by Newt Gingrich and passed in the 1990s with broad bipartisan support—a few weeks ago. The president declared SCHIP to be a scary step toward “a federalization of health care” that would lead to “worse medicine.” In fact, states—not the federal government—run the children’s insurance program and typically contract for care with private managed-care insurers. These are the very same private insurers on whom Republicans lavished billions in taxpayer subsidies when they wrote the Medicare drug legislation and sundry other schemes to give the insurers more Medicare business generally.

But put aside, for a moment, this breathtaking inconsistency. Because that isn’t the whole story. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070731_republicans_defend_tobacco_giants_from_sick_children/

[soothsayer]

1. putting a $20 tax on a cigar is assanine. go get your money elsewhere.

i'm not making your children sick.