Bush to sick uninsured kids: to the emergency room (or maybe not)

Via the Wege, we read this passage in Krugman's column:

Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance, and with it such essentials as regular checkups and preventive medical care, to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it’s not as if those kids really need insurance — they can just go to emergency rooms, right?

In yesterday's  Washington Post, we read the article Congress, Bush Clash Over Children's Health Insurance.  Contrasting quote:

For people such as Beverly Chappell, 43, a Web site developer in Thornton, N.H., the debate is about health and family, not ideology. Chappell and her husband, David, 49, a self-employed carpenter, earn a total of $43,000 a year and for years could not afford health insurance for their family. While the couple still have none, they had signed up their children for the program in 1998 -- just before their son Nathan had his first severe asthma attack.

"If I had not had that insurance, I would not have taken him to the emergency room and he probably would have died," Beverly Chappell said. "The program has value. Nobody should have to evaluate when it is an emergency and when it is not because they are afraid of getting a bill."

So Bush imagines that the solution for uninsured children is going to an emergency room as deadbeats, while for families with sick kids, it's another story entirely..

Big disconnect.  What is Congress proposing? Read the article.

Comments

[A reader]

Thanks Ollie. Looks like the Domaille's are Randy's big contributors. He also has the Winona construction co. money, the Schwabs, and Swedburg, from Hormel's. McNeilus family is contributing to both Demmer and Day. And I'm going to assume Demmer's contributor Lowell Penz, is the father of the owner of the building that Demmer has his office in.