The Senate bill would fund the SCHIP expansion totaly with taxes
on cigarettes: the House bill would do it partially with cigarette taxes, partially by cutting the overpayment to private
sector health insurance companies that provide Medicare Advantage. (Medicare is now paying them 12% more than it would spend if it provided the services to the same beneficiaires directly.)

Moreover, the bills do not provide
healthcare for upper-middle-class (or middle class) kids. What they do is provide care for two groups of kids who are not covered today: a)poor children who are eligible for Schip but are not getting it because the state has not fully funded its part of the program and b) poor kids who have insurance part of the year (when their parents income is so low that they qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP) and then lose the insurance when their parents get a low-paying job (that probably doesn’t offer health insurance.) Then when their parents are laid off–they’re back on SCHIP for a few months. These
kids need consistent care.

Finally, what counts as “poor” varies state by state depending on the cost of living in that state.
Four times the National Poverty Level is worth a lot less if you live in Chicago or D.C. than if you live in Mississippi.

.
Available directions to hospital location are not adequate for many people.

.
Rodent droppings.

.
Human waste.

.
Retributive behavior toward patients that cannot get out of bed from personnel not wanting to handle patients’ bedpans and urine containers.

.
Human waste unattended to for hours.

.
And soaked bed linens.

.
Unsanitary conditions for food result in patients getting worms.

.
Handwashing needs to be attended to more diligently.

.
Lack of easily accessible handwashing stations.

.
Unsanitary dirt and dust in ventilating grill of window air conditioners.

.
Automobile outside the hospital entrance with booming loudspeakers that vibrated the building and vibrated windows for hours at a deafening level.

.
A wall of tobacco smoke from more than twenty tobacco smokers at the hospital entrance blocking people entering and leaving causing asthma respiratory reactions in hospital visitors.

.
There are no telephones for patients that cannot get out of bed.

Of course, if they’d used the cable money toward health insurance, maybe they wouldn’t have had a “medical” bankruptcy either.

Because by that point they have neither cash nor reputation. The real question is how many years before the crisis were they blowing $2500/year on cable, cell, and so forth?

Consider this family. Mom averages 35 hours a week as an assistant night manager at a fast food chain, making $14,500. Dad averages 35 hours a week as a grill cook at a mid-level chain restaurant (think Outback), making $16,000. Commute time is about 3 hours a day. They have three grade school kids. Does it bother you to pay taxes to cover their SCHIP?

Why do I know these people? Mom has no insurance. She got sick, and ran up $30,000 in medical debt. Dad has no health care insurance either. They paid on the debt for a while, lost their apartment, moved in with Mom’s mother, which saves the rent, but increased their gas expense. Their budget is food, gas, clothes for the kids, after-school care and a car payment, one car for the two of them. So, Mom had to file. I did it.

So, again, do you mind paying taxes to cover SCHIP for their kids? Consider this. If a kid gets sick and runs up a big medical bill, who will pay? Mom won’t be able to file again, so dad will have to be responsible, and file himself. These people work as hard as they reasonably can, take every overtime hour that they can and still cannot make it. They are not unusual.

As to other commenters, let me just point out that if Mom and Dad had their own coverage, doctors and hospitals would have been paid. My dad took care of plenty of what were then called charity cases in the 50s, and he hated medi-care, and then he found out that he was getting paid for what he used to do for free. I’m just sayin’.

So the poor pro bono lawyers won’t have as much business. The cable companies will. And more pro bono doctors will get sick and tired of tis shit and go into something else.

By the time people are declaring bankruptcy due to medical problems they have usually downgraded their cable to the basic package. But, what were their spending habits the previous 10-20 years before they declared bankruptcy. You can’t come and try to buy health insurance after you have a big problem and expect to be treated the same as someone who has been investing in their health care whether they are sick or healthy.

This doesn’t just pertain to cable, but it pertains as well to cars, private school, watches, jewelery, etc.