All of North Carolina’s Republicans (Walter Jones, Virginia Foxx, Howard Coble, Robin Hayes, Sue Myrick, Patrick McHenry) voted against overriding President Bush’s veto of the SCHIP legislation, which, as written, would have expanded a program meant for poor people to include middle-class and adult children who don’t need it and shouldn’t have it. All of North Carolina’s Democratic congress members (G.K. Butterfield, Bob Etheridge, David Price, Mike McIntyre, Heath Shuler, Mel Watt, Brad Miller) voted to override the veto and give this entitlement to people who can afford to pay for their own health care.
Of course, all you’ll hear tonight on the news, and in your local paper, is that Republicans want to keep children from getting health care. That’s the lefty spin, and it has already been enshrined in several deliberately vague News & Observer stories, which obscure the extent of the expansion by saying it simply adds families with “slightly higher incomes.” The N&O also generously allowed Democratic congressmen to demagogue the issue shamelessly.
Ironically, you had to read an opinion column by George Will in today’s N&O to get a concise and accurate description of what the SCHIP expansion really means:
SCHIP is described as serving “poor children” or children of “the working poor.” Everyone agrees that it is for “low income” people. Under the bill that Democrats hope to pass over the president’s veto today, states could extend eligibility to households earning $61,950. But America’s median household income is $48,201. How can people above the median income be eligible for a program serving lower income people?
