As a physician I would like everyone to have the opportunity to afford healthcare. For those that have no money then it should be basically free and it is with Medicaid. For older people on a fixed budget it should also be basically free and it is with Medicare. Those are good things. For the rest of us it is either provided in part by our employers or is just way too expensive to get on our own. The working folk get killed on this deal. As for children, I do agree that they ALL need to be covered but it has to be done right. Congress just passed the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program or SCHIP by a margin of 289 to 139. On the surface this really sounds great but the money has got to come from somewhere. Right now they are saying it is coming from cigarette taxes but I don't think that will be nearly enough. The concern that was brought up by the Bush administration in the past is that parents will stop paying insurance to get on the free deal given out by the government. That seems fine if the household income is $40,000 but at what income amount should parents need to start pitching in? According to the recent bill, even at $80,000 parents can stop paying for their kid's insurance and place him or her on the SCHIP deal. You may not remember but this was recently done in Hawaii and it went bankrupt because everyone wanted to save themselves some cash and put their children in line for free healthcare. Though Obama believes that "every child in America (should) have access to affordable health care" it doesn't mean it should be given away for free. We all need to continue to responsible for our fair share. There is no free lunch or free SCHIP.
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