Save SCHIP for Children's Sakes

Nearly everyone professes a desire to renew the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), set to expire in September. Disagreement persists on funding levels & sources, qualification thresholds, and state discretion for variances. Is this a healthy policy debate, or a platform for ideological grandstanding? For the sake of children's health, let's hope SCHIP is funded at levels to protect the truly vulnerable.

There is a policy debate here worth having, but hold on there and look at the scope and the big picture before allowing the ideologues to drag us into minutiae. SCHIP (pronounced ess-chip) is a program which America's governors agree across party lines has benefited the hard working families most deserving of health insurance for their children that they otherwise simply couldn't afford. Everyone agrees that renewing the program for five years at the current level of $25 billion for five years is not enough. The White House wants to limit the expansion to an additional $5 billion, the Senate's bipartisan version expands the program by $35 billion and the House version (HR 3162) by $50 billion. Co-author and conservative Republican Senator Orrin Hatch's made this statement on the floor in favor of the Senate version (S 1893).

The White House is attempting to don the garments of fiscal restraint in threatening a veto of excessive Congressional expansion of SCHIP. Ahem...

In 2003, Bush famously signed into law the most expensive health bill in our nation's history. That bill with a stated price tag of $400 billion over 10 years, almost didn't pass, as Tom DeLay had to coerce one fiscal conservative with a political threat against his son to get the necessary vote. Later we learned that the administration already knew that the price tag was being understated by over $100 billion, but the actuary with that information was being muzzled by his boss, so Congress might pass it. Never mind that the biggest beneficiaries of this bill were the pharmaceuticals and HMOs, much more than the seniors it was supposed to benefit, who in spite of all that government spending were actually going to have their out of pocket costs increase. Multiple sources now tell us that the actual cost to taxpayers of this gargantuan largesse to big pharma and HMO will exceed $1 trillion dollars, though the White House denies them. Note, however, the quiet admission that the cost is over $500 billion.

Yes some perspective is in order.



So this administration wants to trim $30-45 billion off of a program which directly benefits the underinsured in the name of fiscal responsibility, when four years ago it was willing to lie about the cost of a program it supported to the tune of $135 billion, when many of those dollars are an indirect benefit, which simultaneously lined the pockets of the executives who really have Bush's ear.

Yes I understand that the 2003 program is showing a 10 year cost, whereas the 2007 SCHIP graph is showing a 5 year cost - but still look at the difference between columns 5 and 6, which the Administration is declaring a willingness to veto over, compared to the difference betwee columns 2 and 3 which the Administration was willing to LIE over. When it comes to cost control this administration has no credibility whatsoever. It simply says whatever it wants for political reasons, with no apparent regard for the public good.

When all is said and done, this war the President started will likely cost us over $2 trillion dollars, dwarfing further the bars on the graph above - and that doesn't even attempt to assign a value to the lost lives of soldiers and civilians, or the damage to our national image across the globe.

Yes there is a policy debate worth having about SCHIP. From Kaiser to the AARP to pundits to policy journals, folks are weighing in with the specifics. Maybe the House version needs to be scaled back or includes earmarks which don't belong there. I'll take Orrin Hatch's word for it that in the Senate version, "my Democrat colleagues made sacrifices in endorsing this bill and in sacrificing program expansions they so dearly advocated". I personally might prefer the House version, but this President ought to be convinced to sign some compromise - perhaps close to that bipartisan effort in the Senate. I would urge my Congressman to work to present a bill that can be quickly approved, but one which accounts for the realities that the working poor and the working lower middle class must face in health care. Some states have already run out of funds, and in instances children may be literally dying because their parents can't afford the procedures they require.

We Right-of-Center Liberals

As reality has finally descended onto mainstream political discourse in America, the occasional continued chirpings of staunch Bush apologists has taken on more of an other-worldly, cornered-animal, delusional gloss than they had when mainstream attention gave them undeserved legitimacy. Surely it's only a matter of time until national policy will catch up with that reality. In the meantime, I will chuckle every time I see Democratic politicians referred to as "far-left liberals" or socialists.

There are many measures of conservatism and liberalism, but none of them have much relation to whether one acknowledges that our decision to occupy Iraq was the colossal error that most now realize it to have been. Pro-war Lieberman and newly anti-war Brownback should serve as testament to that.

But of all the measures used to measure ideology, the one most often employed is the extent to which one adheres to a market economy model vs. a centrally planned economy model. Some think capitalist vs. socialist, others command economy vs free enterprise, communist vs laissez-faire, but each is an expression of the same dichotomy, though there are many different flavors at each end and in the middle.

Most reasonable people today would acknowledge the problems associated with strict adherence to either extreme along this continuum, and in fact all western democracies have some form of mixed economy which combines elements from each. In these United States we have Social Security, Medicare, a nationalized Postal Service & defense, highly regulated utilities, a Federal Reserve, anti-trust laws, a minimum wage, and many other elements which distance us from a pure market economy, but market forces still remain the driving force for our economy as a whole. We have chosen a market economy with an overlay of some planned elements to keep in check some of the excesses associated with unreined free market capitalism, exposed in an earlier age by writers such as Charles Dickens and Upton Sinclair.

The really remarkable thing in America is the extent of agreement across more than 90% of the political spectrum with our choice of a market based mixed economy. From Dennis Kucinich to Orrin Hatch we are agreed on this. It is not surprising that even very conservative Americans who may think of themselves as pure free marketeers will concede that some aspects of central planning currently in place are desirable. It is somewhat more surprising given the excesses of corporatism evident today, that there aren't more who advocate moving to a planned model with market driven elements. But most of us recognize the dangers associated with ceding too much planning power to a central agency, and have witnessed from afar the far graver excesses of such central power when Stalin ruthlessly purged and punished dissent, or when Mao megalomaniacally exerted his power in the now defamed Cultural Revolution. Some democratically elected governments in Europe have enjoyed some measure of success with a more planned economy, but still I agree with most of my fellow Democrats that we are best served retaining a market based system, even as we advocate for more reasonable controls to counter corporate excess.

By definition, along this economic measure of left and right, a belief that we should retain a market based mixed economy, makes the vast majority of Democrats and liberals in America right of center. At the very least charges that we are far-left, fringe, or socialist are simply laughable. A democratic socialist perspective, far more common in Europe, ought to be a perfectly respectable one, and I think it sad that such views are routinely mocked or worse considered traitorous, in spite of my belief that America is better off retaining a market based model. The more purist views trotted out by the Heritage Foundation, Richard Viguerie, or Grover Norquist surely strike this observer as more extreme than those of a European style democratic socialist.

Ah well, I can live with that as long as America can continue the process of refinding her center, and begin to marginalize the divisive policies foisted upon us by the boardroom bought Republican leadership which at least no longer controls the agenda in Congress. Perhaps she can also find greater civility in political discourse as politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle respond to the disgust of the voters with the status quo and find language that can unite us, in spite of retained differences.

Can Obama Obliterate Limbaugh's Legacy?

It seems almost silly at this stage, 20 month before the next Presidential election, to be getting too excited or too committed to any particular candidate for that office. Already I posted my allegiance to Russ Feingold here the very day after the midterms, only to have him declare his intention NOT to run mere days later. By the time Congressman Dennis Kucinich, my choice in the primaries of 2004 declared his candidacy, I had decided to hold off and wait for a Democrat who not only shared most of my values, but also had a credible chance of being taken seriously.

And so it was in the midst of reading Obama's Audacity of Hope that I (& thousands of others) received this email from the Senator, announcing his intention to form a presidential exploratory committee, writing:

...challenging as they are, it's not the magnitude of our problems that concerns me the most. It's the smallness of our politics. America's faced big problems before. But today, our leaders in Washington seem incapable of working together in a practical, common sense way. Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle the big problems that demand solutions.

In reading his book, it is apparent that Barack Obama more often takes a more moderate tack than what I might, but what I share with him is a passion about the pressing need for people, including politicians, to hone their ability to listen to conflicting perspectives and truly weigh what their adversaries are correct about, rather than derisively dismissing that adversary by association with some aspect of their belief or their affiliation with people or causes which the viewer finds either contemptible or ridiculous.

Mockery has always been around, and its use, whether in satire or a stand-up comedy routine, can lend new perspective, shaking sense into those who might otherwise too easily accept authority's explanation for the status quo. Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, though far too subtle in technique for today's standards, caricatured the Irish wealthy class' indifference to the poor in the 18th century. Jesus' General and Scrappleface capably carry the form with wry humor from two very different perspectives into the modern blogosphere.

But the extent to which modern politicking routinely leans on derision as the modus operandi for motivating its allies to action has poisoned political discourse in America. Even if Barack Obama doesn't win his party's nomination, having an eloquent voice directly challenge the "talking points" formulaic approach to winning by dividing might have a contagious effect on the race as a whole, as Americans yearn for a hopeful message, void of the scorn of the cultural wars.

Which brings me to Limbaugh's legacy. Wasn't it Rush that made an artform of holding up the orthodoxies of politically correct liberalism to ridicule? He was good at it too - and there were orthodoxies there that were laughable enough in their own right. Never mind that they did not represent the thinking of the majority of liberals - mockery worked. When a coworker by proximity introduced me to Limbaugh's tirades in the early nineties, I was struck by his then obsessive fixation with Sally Jessy Raphael as the exemplar of liberalism gone amok. Huh? I was a self-identified liberal, but I found Raphael's tawdry obsession with often morally skewed freaks distasteful at least, if not as repugnant as the antics of Springer or later Povich. Limbaugh successfully conflated liberalism with immorality in the minds of his faithful following, and aside from helping to spawn an ugly brand of lock-step conservatism, with orthodoxies at least as absurd as those he was so adept at exposing or fabricating among carefully selected liberals and academics, he also promoted derision as the chief tool for political discussion and argument.

Today, while my car was in the shop, the loaner car I drove was tuned to Limbaugh, whom I've pretty much avoided since getting more than my fill in 1992 & 93. While I occasionally tune into liberal talk radio today, I recognize what it borrows from Limbaugh's legacy. Today though, I took the opportunity to flip back and forth between Rush and Thom Hartmann. I might usually agree with the analysis of Hartmann, and often his conclusions, while rarely agreeing with Limbaugh, but both are skillfully pandering to many listeners' appetites for derision of their foes, and I won't mind a bit if both are marginalized by a central core of Americans hungry for more civility with a focus on possible solutions to our problems, rather than a mentality of winning at any cost.

That does not mean that everyone should be a centrist. No! No! No! America and the world will thrive best when thoughtful people from diverse perspectives are allowed to contribute their ideas and skills to our common destiny. Feingold on the left and Oklahoma's Tom Coburn on the right are more valuable to the Senate in my estimation than the more moderate, and arguably more powerful, Chuck Schumer is or Bill Frist was. The former are genuine representatives of their constituencies, not panderers to talking points and political expediency. Americans are sometimes surprised when seemingly huge political divides are bridged, like Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy coming together to promote legislation, but they shouldn't be. Obama understands this interplay, and has already had remarkable success at playing the political game while retaining a compelling voice for goodwill and the promotion of common values.

I'm also hungry for great oratory, and was too young to appreciate that of JFK. We've really not had a great orator for a President since JFK. Good speeches here and there from almost every President, including the current one, but a great orator - that would be a welcome change. Obama does not reflect my views perfectly, but in large measure where we differ, his electability is enhanced by that difference. I've read enough and seen enough to be convinced that America would benefit from his candidacy if not his presidency, and have accordingly already sent him that message in the form of a few dollars. Now is the time to do so if you agree, as his expected announcement is expected to come on February 10 (auspiciously my own 50th birthday).

So while the pundits legitimately may question Obama's foreign policy experience, let me leave by quoting this prescient passage from a speech that he gave to an anti-war crowd in 2002, before most of his expected Democratic opponents who happen to have been in the Senate voted to authorize Bush's blank check for taking war to Iraq:

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.... The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

We sure could have used some of THAT inexperience in the oval office in the Spring of 2003!