WASHINGTON — After twice voting against legislation to expand the children's health insurance program, U.S. Rep. Dan Boren announced today that he had a change of heart and would vote to override President Bush's expected veto of the bill.
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In a prepared statement, Boren, D-Muskogee, said, "While I still have reservations about the increased expansion of the program and its reliance on a dwindling revenue source, I believe, after a search of my conscience, that this is the right thing to do for Oklahoma and the country.”
Boren was one of only eight Democrats in the House to vote against the $35 billion expansion last week. The House fell 19 votes short of the margin necessary to override a veto. The Senate approved the bill by a large enough margin to override a veto, but it won't get a chance if the House cannot muster enough votes.
The bill would raise the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents per pack to $1 to provide health insurance to an additional 5.8 million people, mostly children.
Bush has said the expansion would make families with relatively high incomes drop their family coverage and put their children on the public program. Opponents also contend that the cigarette tax revenue won't cover the costs because the higher tax will reduce the number of packs sold.
Oklahoma has one of the highest rates of uninsured children in the nation.
In voting against the bill, Boren has cited the cigarette tax as one reason and has said he doesn't agree with making eligible families with incomes as high as $83,000 a year.
It would be up to states to decide what income levels to set for eligibility.
"My hope is that the president will do as I have done and think about the consequences of vetoing this bill,” Boren said in a prepared statement. "This is an issue that has received bipartisan support.”
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Soonercare has been a great program for the working poor. As someone who works with these families on a daily basis, I am concerned with what will happen when Soonercare is no longer an option.
Truth Seeker, Oklahoma City - Oct 2, 2007 at 8:09 pm
There is nothing virtuous about doing good deeds with other peoples' money. For one who seeks to help others, virtue is donating your own money to charity or taking up a collection from voluntary donors. Using the power of government to force involuntary contributions for "good works" is neither charitable nor virtuous.
Marie, you go girl! This is ridiculous to think we should pay for poor people to have health care. It isn't the Oklahoma way. If these kids would just stop getting sick, snotty nose brats that they are. Why don't we just sterilize all those stupic poor women who keep having babies. Now that is something most of us hard-working Oklahomans could support. Pretty soon I won't be able to afford my cigarettes or my beer (don't tell my pastor) if they keep taxing me too death. That Boren, he's really a socialist in wolves clothing. Never, ever elect a Democrat. They all lie. We should sterilize them as well.
I work in the financial services sector, and it shocks me how many bankruptcy and foreclosure explanations begin with "My (family member) got sick and ... "! This isn't something that should happen in the richest nation on the planet. I can't believe that anyone would insinuate that we shouldn't look out for each other. Health insurance for the self-employed is madly out of control; our family of five (dad, mom, three children) pays $2250 PER MONTH for the absolute bare-bones minimum basic major medical coverage there is. We pay $75+ per child for each well-child visit, and the inoculations run in excess of $125 each. I didn't walk six miles uphill both ways in snow chest deep to get to school, and I don't feed everyone in my household tuna sandwiches for weeks on end, but I'm careful with money; still, prices for prescription drugs (even the generic ones) are outrageous. Kudos to Mr. Boren for backing up those of us who are doing our best and finding that the corporate entities of America are the ones being looked after by the last several years of Republican rule.
Marie, I didn't read the Communist Manifesto in school. It was a banned document when I grew up & my teachers would never have dreamed of ticking off the community by bringing it into the classroom for us to read. (McCarthyism & all that.) I also agree with you that our schools have been dumbed down, but that is another issue from health care. I do feel compassion toward people like my brother who has worked more than 15 years without medical insurance because his family of 5 can't afford the $2000/month for insurance on a household salary of ~$45,000/yr. His employer has 5 employees & isn't required to insure even him, much less his family. The whole point of my original post was to ask why people call it 'socialized medicine' just because tax dollars provide the services, when tax dollars provide all those other services I mentioned, yet they are never viewed as socialist programs. And as a matter of fact, I have asked Canadians, Australians & Brits how they like their health care systems & they say it works just fine as long as you have doctors participating in sufficient numbers to serve the people in the system. In fact, they cannot believe so many Americans think medical care should only be for those privileged enough to afford it & our children in poverty. The flaws in our tax-provided medical programs (Medicare/Medicaid) are that there aren’t enough doctors accepting patients & we primarily cover the sickest people in the country in the program (children in poverty, elderly & disabled.) When you cover the sickest segment of the population, of course the costs are higher.
Concerned, Central Oklahoma - Oct 1, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Marie, it will be a tax on whatever the cowards in Congress think will cost them the least. Smokers are the only minority without any rights. If blacks, Hispanics, women, or gays were banished from government buildings and public accommodations, sent outdoors in inclement weather, spoken to and about in the vilest language, generally treated like social pariahs and taxed out the wazoo for the privilege, the outcries of "bigotry" and "discrimination" would make your ears bleed, so it takes no courage to stick it to smokers. If the congress critters wanted a virtually unlimited source of revenue for their utopian schemes, they could put a little sin tax on soda pop that would raise trillions, but they might get a little resistance on that, so it'll never happen.
Don, you are exactly right. When smoking is so cost prohibitive that no one smokes anymore, where is the money for this coming from then? It was my choice to have children, and to smoke, and to quit smoking. However, I do not believe that one class of people should pay for the problems of everyone else. Will beer be taxed next to fund some social program? Will it be beef? Will it be an extra tax on your car tag or insurance? Who knows?
To Stephen in Yukon, if the real goal is to reduce smoking, then Congressional Dhimmicrats should grow a pair and ban tobacco, not pussyfoot around with raising cigarette taxes. To Joy in MWC, I can show you where the Constitution gives the president authority to conduct war - can you show me where it gives Congress the authority to provide childrens' health insurance? To anyone who cares about such matters, by which moral principle are people who smoke made responsible for paying for other peoples' health insurance? Just wondering.
Why stop with health care I think gas is to high so we need an national plan to help out oh and what about homeowners insurance mines way to much. So lets just start letting the gov. pay all our expenses.We could just hand over all of our paychecks to them (What little we have left over know.)Then everything would be just fantastic. A complete Utopia
Concerned, I am not hard core. I just see too many socialistic ideas and campaign platforms that are right out of the communist manifesto. Weren't you required to read that in highschool? Maybe not, we have dumned our schools down so far that many graduates are not aware of what socialism is. The more we allow the government to run, the less choices we have. Has anyone asked Canada if they are happy with socialized medicine? Why do so many of them come into the US for medical care? It just seems there are better ways to take care of poor children. And since when is a family making 60,000/year or 83,000/year a poor family? That is middle class. I know lots of families that take care of their kids on way less than 60,000/year. They do not have new cars. They do not have new homes. They do not have cable tv and hug stereo systems. They have the bare minimum so they can feed their kids. They do homework with their kids. They play with their kids and vacation for them is one weekend a year at the lake with a picnic and a towel. All this because they are responsible enough to set priorities. They are proud Americans, doing a tough job on very little money with no reward except for the respect they deserve.
Marie, of OKC, I feel exactly the same way about people having children as you do. If they can't afford them, don't have them. What I have a problem with is almost no one currently breeding in this state or country has mine & your same attitude. With that said, I also feel that no matter if you're Bill Gates or a child of a poor family, you deserve some base level of health care coverage. The problem is Bill Gates has it, the child from the poor family does not. My point is that we all pay taxes to have police protection, fire protection, schools & roads. If we 'socilaize' these services, why not health care? And yes, I consider my taxes a 'bill' since they are an expense I have to pay. It's my bill for living among an educated population, having community services & keep our infrastructure in good repair. And no, I do not feel our elected leaders adequately address these areas because they are too busy taking money to keep the profits in the insurance industry, medical industry, war industry, big oil companies, etc.
Concerned, Central Oklahoma - Oct 1, 2007 at 3:00 pm
medicaid does not begin to pay for all the needy children in Oklahoma. It does help the unmarried girls that have baby after baby and don't get married. If they married then they could not live off the state. Yes, I am a little bitter since I work to get health insurance and with have to until I'm 65 in pain or not. Something does need to be done but I feel people need to work at some kind of job in order to get medical help.
Concerned, when was the last time you received a bill for police or fire protection? Or for the free schools your children attend? Or for the roads you drive on every day? This is what I pay taxes for; that and for food to go into the mouths of babies and for old people that have no place to go when they have served us all for 60 years or more. Not for people who have SUV's, new homes, better clothes, cable tv, dishwashers, and every other amenity that the rest of us have worked for for years because we paid for health care for our kids. Not necessarily insurance, but health care. I fed four people, tuna sandwiches for three days on one small can of tuna because I had no money. My children walked to school in cloth tennis shoes because I had no money. We drove a borrowed car because we had no money. Did I take my children to the ER because they had the sniffles? No, by golly, I took them to a doctor and I paid and paid and paid and paid. And that is what is called being responsible for your own children. You pay for that right. You do not take handouts just because you can't afford to pay for what your child needs. You work two jobs and you work night and day and you feed them yourself; your clothe them yourself and if they get sick you pay for that too. Wake up! If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em!
Thank you Congressman Boren, for supporting children & wrking families in our State. To those who think insurance is so affordable, to get insurance equivalent to that offered state employees a family of 4 would have to spend ~$2000/month. Can your family afford that? And as to the 'socialized medicine' mantra... why don't you complain about socialized police protection, socialized fire protection, schools, & roads?
Concerned, Central Oklahoma - Oct 1, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Well said, Marie, well said. The concepts of frugality and thrift are alien to most these days. But why not when true necessities are paid for by the government (ie taxpayers). Don't we already have a program (Medicaid) to cover the health expenses of the needy?
I thought Representative Boren was one of the few sensible politicians from Oklahoma, but now I wonder. This whole problem with the medical issue, for everyone not just children, is that congress won't address the real problem. If they would control the ridiculous charges the medical and pharmaceutical companies charged, we could all afford to get medical treatment. I have to wonder how the people over 40 ever survived since very few had insurance in the pre-nineteen-seventy years.
The federal government should set a cutoff amount such as families making less than $60,000 per year. Without a reasonable cutoff, classify it as socialized medical care.
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