Bruce Lesley writes here about the Republicans’ efforts to remove health coverage from children.
What kind of person would want children to die because they are uninsured and their parents can’t afford medical care?
He writes:
”The year 2017 may go down as the worst year in decades for children in Congress.
“Children’s Health: CHIP, Medicaid, and the ACA
“When the year begin, on January 3, 2017, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Children’s Defense Fund, Children’s Dental Health Project, Children’s Hospital Association, Family Voices, First Focus, and National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners had one simple request of Congress when it came to the health of children Recognizing that 95 percent of children had health care coverage — a historic high — our organizations requested that Congress adopt a “do no harm to children standard.”
Sadly, “do no harm” was too high a standard for this Congress. They decided to inflict harm on millions of children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Peter Greene had a particularly eloquent rant about this last month: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2017/12/chip-and-nobody.html
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Thanks. You are right about eloquence. The moral clarity is in sharp contrast to Congressional action.
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Trump and the greedy for power and wealth, senseless, psycho GOP has moved so far to the right, that they left the planet for the Klingon Empire and are hell-bent to turn back time until the United States is worse than a 3rd world country stuck in the dark ages with disease and starvation rampant among the working class. The only sector that will be high tech and up-to-date will be the military as the U.S. continues to wage endless wars around the planet to feed the bloody fortunes of those that own and control the weapons industry.
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This morning I sent this article to The Times of NW Indiana. Don’t know if it will be published. We can only use 150 words to express our opinions.
………
CHIP, created in 1997, is a bipartisan success story providing health insurance for children of working families who lack access to Medicaid and can’t afford private coverage. It also provides support for children with special healthcare needs. Nearly 9 million children are covered. Nineteen states use CHIP to cover pregnancy and prenatal care for about 370,000 women each year.
CHIP funding expired on September 30. Millions are now left with fear and uncertainty. This missed deadline has real implications for real children and families.
Without funding from Congress states will be forced to make drastic cuts to the program.
It is past time for Congress to pass funding for this program. It is sad that the US is incapable of providing care for its neediest citizens. CHIP helps to reduce disparities in coverage for communities of color–more than half of Hispanic and Black children are covered through CHIP and Medicaid.
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Hoo-rah! I just received a call from a fellow who works at The Times of NW Indiana. My letter will be published on Sunday in the Forum section.
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This is Corporations and top .01%ers UNITED TOGETHER. They are the SAME animal.
“Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”
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This whole health care debacle makes me crazy. The US is the only wealthy democratic country that does not have universal health care. Still, in 2018! What the hell will it take? Michael Moore tried to wake us up with his film, SICKO. To no avail. Bernie Sanders has been screaming in the wilderness for years about the need for a single payer health care system or Medicare for all. Nothing. The best we could come up with was Obamacare which is not universal health care. Obama had the chance to create a true national health care system but he was no LBJ who bullied through Medicare and Medicaid. All the other wealthy democratic countries have some form or version of universal health, no one goes bankrupt from medical bills and the medications cost a fraction of what they do in the US. I still hear GOPers, libertarians and right wingers telling the same lies about the other countries: *that Canadians come to the US for health, a damn lie/myth; that there are long wait times in Canada or the UK, partly true but highly exaggerated. If you need medical care in the UK or Canada, you get it at no cost at the point of service. What about the wait times we have in the US, what about all the millions of Americans who have no insurance and are not even on a waiting list? Canadians and Brits don’t go bankrupt from medical and drug costs and they love their health systems faults notwithstanding. In many other of the countries, such as Germany or France, there are no wait times. Will it take some kind of massive revolt to finally at some point get universal health care? When, 2094?
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Even though reauthorizing CHIP is the number one public priority, it is being ignored by most representatives because they work for the 1%, not the rest of us. Our country under this administration blatantly ignores regular Americans in order to give more the the wealthy. Our nation is in a state of decline. Not only do we lead the industrialized world in the number of infant deaths, our longevity statistics are in in decline due to the number of overdoses from drug use. Trump responds with moral outrage, like many Republicans, but he is unwilling to provide funding for treatment to significantly improve outcomes for addicts. America still treats addition as a crime, not a disease. Too many elected representatives are out of touch with the needs of working families.
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“. . . our longevity statistics are in decline due to the number of overdoses from drug use.”
Could you please supply us with some links that discuss/state that? Gracias.
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This bit of information was recently in the news. Our collective life expectancy is falling because so many young people are dying prematurely due to drug addition, and our alcohol related deaths are on the rise as well. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/12/21/572080314/life-expectancy-drops-again-as-opioid-deaths-surge-in-u-s
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Thanks, will read.
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Evil. Looking forward to the midterms and to cleaning house of these politicians who have the moral scruples of wasp larvae.
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While being rather harsh to wasp larvae, you mean like the Guv of the Show Me State?
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The moral scruples of a petri dish of e-bola and anthrax combined . . . .Is that what you meant?
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Let’s call it what it is: class warfare. The kids aren’t the target, but are simply collateral damage, unless they’re in school, in which case they’re data sets to be monetized.
As Warren Buffett told Joe Nocera of the Times in 2006, in a statement that cannot be repeated enough, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
That truthful statement by the Oracle of Omaha should be placed at the top of every story about investment, employment, labor and tax law, etc.
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We need to always remember that the very first move of this Congress, last January, after the election which effectively gave them control over all three branches of government, was an attempt to gut the Congressional ethics watchdog, apparently because one can never have enough power when abusing it is part of your plan: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/03/outcry-after-republicans-vote-to-dismantle-independent-ethics-body
Congress could learn a lot from the highly trained professional teachers that they disparage at every turn, such as Early Childhood Educators, whose first ethical principal is:
P-1.1—Above all, we shall not harm children. We shall
not participate in practices that are emotionally damaging,
physically harmful, disrespectful, degrading,
dangerous, exploitative, or intimidating to children.
This principle has precedence over all others in
this Code. (NAEYC, 2011, p. 3)
When are all the Republicans who claim to be Christians going to stand up for children and other vulnerable populations, like seniors, the disabled and the poor, and rail against GOP practices that seek to deny them safety nets? This is so antithetical to Christ’s teachings that it’s very hard to believe those folks are able to sleep at night.
References
NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) (2011). NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct and Statement of Commitment. Washington, DC: Author.
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The NAEYC Code of Ethics can be found here: https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/files/globally-shared/Ethics%20Position%20Statement2011_09202013update.pdf
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Due to conflicts that arise from competing interests, NAEYC added the following clarification to a supplement that was added to the Code of Ethics:
“P-1.1
We shall place the welfare and safety of children
above other obligations (for example, to families,
program personnel, employing agency, community).
This item takes precedence over all others in this
Supplement.”
When applied to politicians, that covers placing the well-being of children over the interests of their donors:
Click to access Supplement%20PS2011.pdf
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