We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union of Big Business and Government, establish Justice for Stockholders, insure domestic Labor Tranquility, provide for the common defense of profits, promote the general Welfare of Corporations, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our prosperous stockholders, do ordain and establish this Republican Constitution for the United States of America.
From the NYT:
The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.
Administration officials outlined the new standards in a letter sent to state health officials on Friday evening, in the middle of a month-long Congressional recess. In interviews, they said the changes were aimed at returning the Children’s Health Insurance Program to its original focus on low-income children and to make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage.
Something that has entered the common consciousness is the idea that it is the role of government to protect corporations at the expense of individuals. Government should instead serve as a bulwark against the predations of corporations.
The Congressional Budget Office has said that the president’s budget, which seeks $30 billion from 2008 to 2012, is not enough to pay for current levels of enrollment, much less to cover children who are eligible but not enrolled.
When Congress created the Children’s Health Insurance Program in 1997, it said the purpose was to cover “uninsured low-income children.” Under the law, states are supposed to make sure public coverage “does not substitute for coverage under group health plans;” but the law did not specify what states must do.
In an interview today, Mr. Smith said: “The program was always meant for children in lower-income families. As states move higher up the income scale, it’s more likely to substitute for private coverage.”
To minimize the risk of such substitution, Mr. Smith said in his letter, states should charge co-payments or premiums that approximate the cost of private coverage and should impose “waiting periods,” to make sure higher-income children do not go directly from a private health plan to a public program.
$30 billion for kids, but $500 billion to pharmaceuticals in the prescription drug bill. The Mafia is jealous of these guys.