The One Where I Take "Premiere" Blogger Jeff Coryell to School on SCHIP...Again

Over at Cleveland Plain Dealer's WIDE OPEN, "premiere" blogger Jeff Coryell posts another gratuitous set of lies intended to confuse readership of Cleveland.com. Here is the post and I shall take it apart point by point...again.

This strategy mirrors comments left by conservative readers of this blog, portraying the SCHIP expansion as a step toward socialized medicine and a program intended to cover illegal aliens and adults.

I'm not just some "reader" of the blog, Jeff... I actually have some connections and have read up on this bill quite a bit.

Let me ask you a few questions, Jeff, and we'll let the readers decide whether or not this bill furthers your cause on the march towards socialized medicene or not.

1. What entity will run the program?

A. The consumer. You get to to make all of the decisions.

B. The doctors.

C. The government.

The correct answer for those scoring at home is C. This will be a government-run program. Kind of like the IRS only dealing with your kids health.

2. How are Democrats going to pay for it?

A. They aren't.

B. Raise taxes on cigarettes.

C. Raise taxes on everyone else.

D. All of the above.

The correct answer is D. Democrats aren't going to pay for this, taxpayers would. They propose a massive tax on tobacco to pay for this boondoggle, but forget to tell everybody that they would need 22.4 million NEW smokers by 2017. That's a LOT of Democrats taking up a filthy dirty habit. I think we can say that it isn't exactly a given that they are going to be able to pay for this thing by killing the smokers or the tobacco farmers. Which leads us to the question that Jeff FAILED to answer the first time I took him to school... Democrats are going to raise taxes on everyone to pay for this. It is the only way to fund it. And THAT is the truth.

3. Will the program insure kids who already have private insurance?

A. Heck no, that would be silly.

B. Yeah, but not that many...

C. Yes. A significant number of kids who currently have insurance will be covered by SCHIP.

The answer is C. 2 million kids, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will be covered under the new program.

Now, let's move on to the illegal aliens that will be covered under Jeff's utopian dream. Here is what the Republicans have to say on the matter:

Democrats say their bill would require states to submit the names and Social Security numbers of applicants to the Social Security Administration (SSA). But the SSA Commissioner made clear in a letter that the Democrats’ proposal will NOT prevent legal and illegal aliens from violating our laws and qualifying for Medicaid and SCHIP.

Read it Jeff...

If you are interested, it is Section 211 of the SCHIP legislation that makes all of this happen for those who came to our country illegally.

Now, let's shift to adults... Dictionary.com defins an adult as...

a person who has attained the age of maturity as specified by law.

By law, that age is what? 18, than you very much. This expansion of SCHIP will cover "kids" up to the age of what, Jeff? That's right...25. Now, I',m not the math guy, but I think when I was going to school 25 was a bigger number than 18...

The Democrats’ bill continues to use taxpayer dollars to fund SCHIP for adults through 2012, taking away limited resources from needy kids – the original intent of the program when it was created by Republicans in 1997.

Might I recommend that Jeff take a closer look at Section 112 of the SCHIP legislation.

While, we're at it, let's talk about the kids in families that probably don't need the government's "protection" in the first place...

The measure fails to focus on low-income children and instead grandfathers states like New York which provide SCHIP benefits to children with middle- and upper-income families who earn up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level (currently $83,000).

Section 114 is where you'll want to go for that, Jeff...

Okay, now let's go over his "arguments" against the Republican response:

First, SCHIP does nothing to advance socialized medicine. This is a block grant program, under which states opting to receive federal funds run their own programs in compliance with federal rules. There is no "single payer," and the program is not run by the federal government. The caregivers who actually provide the health care are generally private rather than government employees.

It doesn't have to be "single payer" to be considered socialized medicene, Jeff...all it need do to qualify is be government run instead of consumer oriented. I think we'll agree from the exercise above, that this is a government-run program and not market based.

Second, SCHIP does not cover illegal immigrants. (Thanks to Republican objections during the negotiation of the House-Senate compromise version of the SCHIP bill, it doesn't even cover legal immigrants.) The entire GOP attack on this basis is premised on a change in how the citizenship status of applicants is verified. States administering the program have determined that requiring documentation of citizenship in the form of birth certificates is impractical and harmful, since many applicants don't have them. (This is notably true in rural areas.) Therefore, the new law is based on verification of social security numbers, which contrary to myth are not provided to illegal immigrants. While that system may not be perfect, the claim that SCHIP covers illegal immigrants is false, and the notion that legions of illegal immigrants will subvert the system and obtain benefits is patently absurd.

And the Social Security Administration has already debunked this line of distortion. Read the PDF again if you didn't.

Third, the SCHIP program is aimed at children. Adults are generally not eligible. Some states have in the past obtained waivers from the federal government (yes, the Bush administration) to extend benefits to certain adults, usually adults who are disabled, pregnant, or parents of eligible children. New waivers to provide coverage of adults without children has been prohibited since passage of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2006. The Bush administration likes to portray this as a major dimension of the program by emphasizing that about 600,000 adults are receiving benefits under SCHIP, but that is only a tenth of the six million recipients overall. This is fundamentally a program for uninsured children.

19 to 25 year olds are NOT children, Jeff. Not in this country anyway...

Fourth, although it is not possible to extend SCHIP to all uninsured children without incidentally "crowding out" a some families who would otherwise buy private insurance, the effect is minor and is a small price to pay to achieve the goal of covering children. Extensive research shows that the rate of substitution of SCHIP for private insurance among lower-income working families is very low. Moreover, states have instituted measures to discourage such substitution, as by implementing waiting periods (during which the recipient must be uninsured) and charging premiums and cost sharing amounts similar to what recipients would face with private insurance.

That number is 2 million, Jeff...that sounds like a pretty big number to me, but again, I'm not really a math guy...

Finally, opponents of SHIP expansion insist that the program would extend to upper-middle class families. Yesterday, for example, President Bush said in Lancaster, Pennsylvania that the SCHIP bill "expands coverage, federal coverage, up to families earning $83,000 a year. That doesn't sound poor to me." However, that claim is patently misleading. The bill actually restricts SCHIP money to families earning no more than 300% of the federal poverty level, which means about $60,000 for a family of four. President Bush's assertion is based on a waiver request by the State of New York that was in fact rejected by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Actually, Jeff, you've made another math error here. The number is 400% and the number is actually $83,000 because of the state of New York. Do you honestly think the 49 other states in the union is going to let New York get all that money?

Nice try, Jeff... I'm still not buying it. And neither will the American people once they see what a scam this is...