Bush
Chooses War And Tobacco Company Profits Over Children's Health Care
By Mary Shaw
05 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
As
promised, George W. Bush has vetoed a highly popular bipartisan bill
that would provide health care for uninsured low-income American children.
These children happen to
have parents who aren't lucky enough to have jobs that provide health
care benefits for their families. That is not an unusual situation to
be in these days. But Bush has no empathy for these children. He has
always enjoyed the best medical care when he's needed it. And, as he
once told one of his professors at Harvard Business School, Bush believes
that "poor people are poor because they're lazy." Absurd and
pathetic as that attitude may be, it is even more absurd and pathetic
to make the children pay the price.
By the way, this is the same
George W. Bush who has called himself a "compassionate conservative".
So where is the compassion in depriving America's innocent children
of health care that could save their lives?
For the record, Bush is now
officially a lame duck. And lame duck Bush says that the children's
health insurance bill would amount to too much spending, and that it
borders on socialized medicine. Yet, this system has been working well
for a while on the state level, and a proposed tobacco tax hike would
pay for it. Sounds ideal. Better health all around.
But Bush would rather side
with the tobacco corporations. No more taxes on cigarettes. According
to Bush, everyone should have access to reasonably priced cigarettes.
That's more important than access to health care.
The vetoed bill would cost
$35 billion over five years, and Bush tries to use that as an excuse
for his veto. It's just too much spending, he tells us, as if he is
fiscally responsible.
But consider this: The Iraq
war is costing us about $8.4 billion per month.
So, for just four months
of Iraq war costs, we could insure all those sick children for five
years. Think about that.
Nope. Veto. It's too much
spending.
Instead, America's uninsured
children can just suffer and die, and we'll use that money instead to
bomb more innocent Iraqi children.
God bless America.
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist.
She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning
human rights group Amnesty International, and her views on politics,
human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online
forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas
expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect
the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with
which she may be associated. E-mail: [email protected]
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