SCHIPping Away at the Bush Legacy

It’s hard to imagine a worse PR move for a politician than to keep children from seeing the doctor. But President Bush seems to relish playing the role of the Grinch who Stole Health Care, promising to veto bipartisan legislation passed this week to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). SCHIP is a 10-year old system jointly funded by the states and the federal government that provides health insurance to 6 million middle-class children, mostly those living in families between 200% and 300% of the Federal Poverty Level. In partnership with the program for the poorest of the poor, Medicaid, the federal government currently assists one in four American children with the cost of health insurance.

But there are an estimated 9 million more uninsured children, many of whom are eligible for these programs but not enrolled because the federal government caps SCHIP spending. A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate passed legislation this week to allocate an additional $60 billion over the next 5 years. The President is trying to block this expansion. In addition to his oft-repeated veto threat, his administration went on the offensive earlier this month, using its existing authority to kill a New York plan to enroll an additional 70,000 children.

Ah, madinejad.

I biked straight into a circus when I arrived at school yesterday. Columbia’s main gate was thick with protesters denouncing the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There were journalists (and journalism students) blocking the sidewalk and police demanding school IDs before letting people onto campus. As I struggled to fish out my wallet, all sweaty from my ride from my home in Washington Heights, I was sure someone was going to panic that my duffel bag contained a bomb. Once inside the Big Top–I mean campus–there was a crowd gathered on the steps of the domed Lowe Library, listening to an orderly lineup of students on either side of the controversy taking turns to voice their opinions.

I just wanted to go to the gym. As the hoopla surrounding Ahmadinejad’s speech built last week, I couldn’t help but tune it out. I could see both sides of the argument, and I found the absolutism on either side hard to take. On the one hand, giving a platform to an antisemitic hatemonger who is likely pursuing nuclear weapons is questionable. On the other, dialog is the best antidote to war in the long run, and listening to a country with which we disagree so strongly means hearing a lot of things we don’t like to hear. I walked over to the athletic center blocking out the signs that littered the walk. When I walked to the journalism school after my workout, there was a group of Jewish students singing and dancing in a circle beneath the campus’ Greek-revival buildings.

Bush Consultant No Longer Anti-Humanity

From HotlineBlog:

Bush-Cheney ‘04 adman Fred Davis has joined the Bono-endorsed anti-poverty non-profit ONE campaign as its sole media consultant.

“It’s nice to be on the side of all of humanity this time,” said Davis.

Quiet Passage

I can’t be the only person wondering what Marcelle Marceau’s last words were.

The mime passed away in Paris at the age of 84.