Sick children

America’s healthcare system has been in crisis for a long time and it shows no sign of improving anytime soon. Republicans have been leading the charge against real reform, insisting instead on protecting the profits of the healthcare corporations and insurance companies.

Think that’s just partisan rhetoric? I wish. George Bush is the main cheerleader for the status quo.

Bush last week promised to veto the State Children's Health Insurance Program (also known as SCHIP, pronounced “ess-chip”) after Congress began work on a bipartisan plan to increase funding by $35 million. The programme helps working families who make too much money for Medicaid (welfare) and too little to buy private health insurance. It covers 6.1 million children.

But Bush says taking care of vulnerable, sick children will lead to “less quality care and rationing over time”. Why? Because he seems to believe it’s a Government programme. He’s wrong (lying?) about that, of course; it provides money for people—working people—to buy health insurance.

Bush says taking care of sick children “would entail a huge tax increase for the American people”. Well, he’s right about that: Congress plans to fund the increased spending by raising taxes on cigarettes—undeniably a good public health move in its own right. Tax a dangerous unhealthy practice to provide healthcare to children: A good trade-off.

Bush is planning the same lame-brained “plan” as Rudy Giuliani: He wants to give tax credits to people to buy private health insurance. As I said before about Rudy’s crazy “plan”, this will do nothing for working people who can’t afford health insurance in the first place. Bush says government assuring access to healthcare would “distort the market,” but boosting the profits of the existing insurers—profits they wouldn’t have otherwise—through “tax credits” wouldn’t.

What colour is the sky on that man’s planet?

What Republicans apparently don’t—or refuse—to understand is that healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Relying on profit-making entities to deliver healthcare will benefit not one except the profiteers. The Bush-Giuliani plan will “distort the market” every bit as much as any miniscule programme to help the children of the working poor, only those “distortions” will go straight into the pockets of the insurance companies.

How many children will die preventable deaths because of Bush’s partisan bullshit? Too many.

Whenever I hear people complain about New Zealand’s healthcare system—and it does have problems—I’m at least comforted by knowing that it could be far, far worse: It could be America’s system.