If One Kid Gets Adequate Health Care

soon everyone will want it.

Bush supports children the same way he supports the troops. Children's health care should be a no-brainer, right? Not for this president.

Here's a key concept:

The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room. The question is, will we be wise about how we pay for health care. I believe the best way to do so is to enable more people to have private insurance. And the reason I emphasize private insurance, the best health care plan -- the best health care policy is one that emphasizes private health. In other words, the opposite of that would be government control of health care.

Point one: make sure as many people as possible are forking over money to the sharks who collect premiums and routinely disallow claims.

The second sentence is, at best, prevarication. People have diminishing access to coverage as employers are forced to cut benefits because of rising costs. This doesn't include the 48 million who have no insurance at all, a number that's been growing since Bush took office. Those people don't exist. Just ask him.

The rest of it is word salad. The man's nuts.

And he goes on:

My position is, we ought to help the poor -- and we do, through Medicaid. My position is, we ought to have a modern medical system for the seniors -- and we do, through Medicare. But I strongly object to the government providing incentives for people to leave private medicine, private health care to the public sector. And I think it's wrong and I think it's a mistake. And therefore, I will resist Congress's attempt -- (applause) -- I'll resist Congress's attempt to federalize medicine.

I mean, think of it this way: They're going to increase the number of folks eligible through S-CHIP; some want to lower the age for Medicare. And then all of a sudden, you begin to see a -- I wouldn't call it a plot, just a strategy -- (laughter) -- to get more people to be a part of a federalization of health care. In my judgment, that would be -- it would lead to not better medicine, but worse medicine. It would lead to not more innovation, but less innovation.

Translation: if everybody opts for a plan run by the government that is economical and efficient and provides quality health care for enrollees, how are the insurance companies going have the money to fork over for Republican political campaigns?

Thanks to Crooks and Liars.