Mission Accomplished, Change, Financial Bailout, Stimulus, all the phony baloney phrases being used to "spin" the bad news that is our country's financial, social and political environment. Meanwhile, citizens who see criticism as negativity and reality checks as some anti religious heresy, allow themselves to be manipulated into conjuring a "list" of successes that don't exist.
"Groups join to spend $10 million on thank-you ads" reads the headline in the Associated Press for February 13, 2009. Even giving the interest groups the benefit of the doubt on this expenditure of a $10 million thank you for passing SCHIP expansion and funding, it doesn't make sense.
Keep it Simple Today: Being of service to the American people means all Americans, not just the ones that are easiest to pacify. The aging, barely making ends meet wide group of taxpaying Americans who have paid their taxes for decades, paid their health insurance premiums for decades and worked for decades are not comforted by another one of the "Save the Children, let their Parents drop dead" feel good legislation.
While a thank you is always nice, it also implies that something meaningful has been accomplished and the expansion and funding of SCHIP neither has the track record nor the hopes of any meaningful progress for the health insurance crisis.
Children are not uninsured because their parents are trying to save a buck, they are uninsured because their parents don't have health insurance. Insuring children is cheap, can allow politicians to boast they've reduced the "number of uninsured" and gives insurance companies guaranteed clients.
SCHIP is not new and has not worked and while feathers will ruffle at depriving the "children", insurance for children is a waste of money if their families are going broke and remain uninsured.
Thank you would have been appropriate if Congress had forfeited their individual pay raises of almost $6,000 per annum. Thank you would have been appropriate if Congress had opted out of the expansive and expanding handout that are federal governmental employee benefits packages instead of fighting for their own superior coverage of benefits and telling the rest of America to go it alone. Thank you might even have been appropriate with the expansion of Medicaid type insurance available to part time workers, volunteers and students of all ages instead of more of the same.
This is a "keep up the good work" thank you that is so misplaced that it seems like maybe those "interest" groups are not really sharing their agenda for health insurance with the American Public.
