Healthcare

Hill Pundits Peter Fenn & Frank Donatelli debate Bush's SCHIP veto.

Now that the president has vetoed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), what is the next step for Republicans?

We know what the Democrats are going to do.

First, they are going to wait a couple of weeks, because while SCHIP is important, it is really not that important.

They are going to run thousands of ads aimed at those who voted to sustain the president’s veto. Read more...

Reauthorizing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has proven more complicated than it should have been. Started by a Republican Congress more than a decade ago, Congressional Democrats have made the program their own with a plan to rapidly expand its size and scope.

The first battle in the war over fiscal responsibility this fall will be fought over SCHIP terrain, a battlefield not particularly friendly to the Republican position. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has already taken to calling the president and his allies anti-children, demagoguery that is completely effective in the short term. Bush’s retort that this expansion is the first step to government-run healthcare appeals to a small band of ideological purists, but largely fails to convince the public at large. Read more...

I get a lot of e-mails these days about Republicans fighting for earmark reform and how the Democrats are not doing enough to curb pet projects, et cetera — something GOPers simply didn't have the time to take care of when they were in power for 12 years. They have wisely decided earmark reform is a better subject for press releases than President Bush's upcoming veto on the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill that passed the House yesterday. I guess standing between insurance for poor children and Bush is about as appealing as defending the Iraq war day in and day out. Read more...

President Bush is on the warpath again, vowing to veto pending legislation in Congress to expand the very successful children’s health care program.

Yes, this man, who opposed providing healthcare to kids while he was governor of Texas, is now opposing expansion of the federal children’s healthcare program — even though it has broad bipartisan support in Congress, and support of most of the nation’s governors, both Democrat and Republican. Read more...

Healthcare reform is certainly the hot topic these days, especially among Democrats. Republicans, as usual, are quiet as church mice, except when lashing out at the Democratic presidential candidates. As for offering plans of their own ... a deafening silence from the R’s. Read more...

To me the Hillary Healthcare roll-out was one of the most interesting moments in politics we have witnessed in a long while. While the plan would please the Democratic base, of course, it was also designed as yet another introduction of the general election candidate. Fittingly, her policy, as well as its introduction, were carefully built to withstand GOP criticism and to avoid Republican traps. Read more...

John Edwards has his health plan. So do Barack Obama and Bill Richardson. And now Hillary Clinton has her health plan, too.

She announced it Monday. It would provide universal healthcare for every man, woman and child in America. It would cost around $100 billion. It would be paid for by rolling back George Bush’s tax cuts for Americans making over $250,000 a year.

No sooner did Hillary announce her plan than John Edwards and others started sniping: “Her plan’s not as good as mine.” Read more...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has learned a few things over the last 15 years.

And if Republicans aren’t careful, she is going to put that knowledge to use to jam a new version of Hillary healthcare down their throats.

First, Hillary’s new proposal is much different — at least, superficially — from her proposal a decade and a half ago. Gone is the big mousetrap, full of government bureaucracy and noxious mandates. Gone is the socialistic decree that nobody’s healthcare can be better than anybody else’s. Gone are the back-room secret meetings and the big imagination of Ira Magaziner.  Read more...

Amid appropriate fanfare, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is set to unveil Hillary Care II in Iowa today. The campaign is not revealing many details about the plan, other than the traditional rhetoric that it will provide universal coverage, more affordable insurance and better care. Whether or not these three goals are compatible would make for an interesting discussion, but one beyond our current scope. Though the details are few, here is what we can predict about what Hillary Care II will mean. We can make these predictions with some confidence after a review of her first disastrous foray into healthcare in 1993 and the woolly liberal rhetoric that we are hearing from all of the Democratic presidential candidates.  Read more...