CHIP VETO SUSTAINED IN HOUSE
CHIP VETO SUSTAINED IN HOUSE
Bush's veto of the proposed $35 million increase to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, an increase that would be used to subsidize health care for more low-income families and keep 6.6 million children insured, was sustained by the House last Thursday. The vote was 273-156, 13 short of the required two-thirds majority needed. The Senate had passed the bill with a veto-proof majority in the first place.
Forty-four Republicans broke ranks to stand up for health care rights for children (one fewer than had voted for the bill on Sept. 25) while two Democrats decided to be complete dipshits and vote against the bill. Their names are Jim Marshall of Georgia and Gene Taylor of Mississippi.
My question is, Why are these elitist free-market worshippers so determined to derail such a common sense bill like this one?
Well, for one thing, the Right-wing Echo Chamber showed out in full effect to support their king's decision in the weeks following the initial veto, parroting the same baloney Bush made up. The Tennessean ran an opinion piece by Phil Valentine that blasted the program and then denied that health care was a right (with the customary Hillary bashing, of course). If this isn't cultist laissez-faire thinking, I don't know what is. Is he saying that people that can't afford health care don't have the right to live? Does the market now decide who lives and dies? Maybe Phil's real goal is to have people die. Maybe that's why government, taxpayer-extracted military spending is A-OK by him, because people die from it. Who knows.
So let's all rejoice that our government has once again failed to protect us from predatory business interests because in America we don't give a damn about anyone but No. 1, thank you very much.
Source: Time Magazine


--Dustin Shane (Comment this)