New S-CHIP vote? Take Action

From FamiliesUSA.org:

The CHIP bill, twice vetoed by President Bush, was a truly bipartisan bill that would have:

* Added $35 billion to the program over the next five years to cover approximately 10 million children: 6.6 million children who are currently enrolled and 4 million who will be uninsured without this bill. The majority of the children who would gain coverage under this bill are already eligible for coverage today, but CHIP needs more money to cover them.
* Better allocated funding to states to cover uninsured children and helped avoid funding shortfalls that prevent children from receiving coverage.
* Given states new tools to reach out to eligible uninsured children and get them enrolled.
* Strengthened the CHIP benefit package by guaranteeing dental health and mental health benefits.

Now, with a new Congress, we have a chance to get this right and to make sure America's children can get the health care they need. The details of the bill are being worked out, but we expect a multi-year reauthorization and expansion of CHIP.

Tell Congress: Pass S-CHIP Now

CPUSA Nat'l Cmte. March 29 – Report on the Elections

This report on the 2008 elections was delivered by Joelle Fishman and will be available soon in a complete form at cpusa.org.

"This election presents an historic opportunity to end ultra-right-wing rule of this country, " Fishman started.

Our role and the main goal of all progressive forces should be to defeat McCain and to win with a landslide victory in November.

"A massive voter turnout in November is needed to provide the political strength to win new priorities," Fishman said.

Obama's candidacy is new an unique. He recognizes the role of the people in bringing about progressive change. He also understands the need for maximum unity to win social progress, Fishman said.

His contribution on the issue of racism recognizes that racism holds everyone back and that ending racism benefits everyone, she said.

"Neither candidate is of the left," Fishman said, but history teaches us that when people mobilize candidates can be forced to act to do the right things.

Keeping fire on McCain and exposing the fact that he is the favorite off the ultra-right and of Wall street, is a main task for us.

"John McCain is a favorite of the military industrial complex," Fishman noted. "He is the favorite of Wall Street.

He opposes S-CHIP and universal health care; he supports obscene tax cuts for the super-rich; he supports Bush's war policy and wants to stay in Iraq endlessly and spread that war to Iran.

(Fishman noted here some examples of the key policy differences between the Communist Party and the Democratic Party. While Democratic candidates seem to favor repealing the worst of Bush's tax cuts for the rich, Communists want tax policy to be moved back to 1970s levels to ensure that the very richest people pay their fair share into the treasury and lift the burden off of working families. Democratic candidates appear to favor the ongoing war and occupation of Afghanistan, while the Communist Party calls for bringing those troops home as well as ending the Iraq war and transforming US foreign policy. Also, while the Democratic candidates have offered plans that move toward universal health care, the Communist Party seeks passage of a national health insurance program that is a single-payer, not for profit Medicare for all system.)

In addition to winning the presidency, Fishman argued, bigger Democratic majorities need to be won in Congress. Citing failed efforts to win passage of several bills that would have mandated timetables for withdrawal from Iraq as examples, Fishman said larger majorities could override vetoes and block Senate Republican filibusters.

"There is a need to increase the pro-labor and pro-peace members of Congress," she said.

The Communist Party plans to watch closely 28 House races, 4 Senate races, 2 governorships, and several ballot initiatives across the country, Fishman announced.

Fishman also reported on the role of "core forces" in the 2008 election cycle. The Communist Party uses the term "core forces" to refer to those communities in our country who have a special role within the working class and around the working class in bringing about social progress.

Fishman stated that Latino, youth and women voters have dramatically increased their votes for the Democratic candidates, while African Americans have increased their turnout in the South.

Labor is making a huge national effort to win the presidency for a Democratic candidate. Additionally, the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win coalition are launching a massive postcard campaign to get 1 million signatures in support of passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and for universal health care. While some AFL-CIO unions have endorsed Obama and some have backed Clinton, the federation itself is waiting to endorse the Democratic nominee. CtW has backed Obama.

The labor campaign will also work to expose the real McCain. He is not on the side of workers. He supports NAFTA unquestioningly. He opposes universal health care. And he will seek to expand the war.

African Americans have been inspired and energized by the Obama campaign. Massive new efforts to register Black voters are underway. If African American voters in some southern states like South Carolina and Georgia vote in proportion to their populations, they could flip those states from red to blue, Fishman argued.

Fishman also described as "hype" the notion that Latino voters will not back Black candidates. Latino voters have voted in the primaries 79% for Democratic candidates (up from 60 in 2004 general election). Latino turnout has tripled. New registration drives among Latino voters aim for 12 million registered with 10 million voter turnout.

Fishman called for Democratic candidates to reject the divisiveness promoted by the ultra-right Republicans on the immigration question.

Women voters have also turned out higher for the Democratic candidates.

Additionally, youth voters, environmentally-oriented, and peace voters have an opportunity to make their mark on this election.

For its part, the Communist Party will develop multimedia/Internet tools and printed pamphlets that expose the real McCain and his record and introduce voters to the election platform of the Communist Party. Communist Party members will work in local communities registering voters from the core forces and mobilizing them to defeat John McCain and to win bigger majorities in Congress.

Republican Policies Put 759,000 Children with Asthma at Risk

According to Science Daily, 759,000 children who suffer from asthma are at risk each year of suffering an attack while they have no health insurance.

759,000.

About 114,000 of them lacked insurance the entire year, and were 14 times as likely to go without needed medical care.

According to the article, 70% of the 759,000 were eligible for S-CHIP. George W. Bush and and a handful of Republicans in the House of Representatives twice blocked the S-CHIP reauthorization bill which would have expanded the program to cover as many as 4 million additional uninsured children.

Childhood asthma disproportionately affects African American children in lower income families. According to a Boston University study published in 2005, African American children in poor families were at a "substantially higher risk of asthma" than white or Latino children.

Objectively, the Republican Party's successful fight to block S-CHIP expansion was a racist attack on Black children. And in my mind there is no doubt, given the Republican Party's and the Bush administration's history on these questions, that their lack of concern and even hatred is subjective too.

Also disturbing is that 30% of children with asthma who lacked health insurance at some point last year live in families above the 200% federal poverty threshold for S-CHIP eligibility. Now Republicans tried during the S-CHIP fight last summer and fall and will try to tell you these folks are rich. But they're not.

Many of these families live in places where the cost of living is so high that being at 210% or 250% or even 300% of the federal poverty level is meaningless. Try living in New York City (or San Francisco or Newark or Chicago or DC) and caring for a family of four with an income of $26,000 dollars. That is above 200% of federal poverty. But it doesn't mean you can afford private insurance.

It's time for a change. People want to know what "change" means. This is it.

The Science Daily article also provides one key piece of information that can put to rest claims by the extremist Republicans who blocked the S-CHIP bill and the insurance companies about the quality of public versus private insurance:

No differences were found between children with private and public insurance, when it came to unmet needs, discontinuity in care or poor access. This suggests that consistency of coverage for children with asthma is more important than the source of insurance. [emphasis added]

You can read more about S-CHIP in the January print edition of Political Affairs – coming soon!

Bush and GOP Not Making Sense on S-CHIP

1. Republicans have repeatedly described the S-CHIP program as "socialized medicine," with Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) calling it "garbage" and "secret socialized medicine" and "an international socialized medicine program." (Wow!). But its main co-sponsors are Republicans, it was originally authored by Republicans.

2. Republicans and the White House insist they don't want to raise taxes to fund S-CHIP, but the House GOP alternative to the Democratic plan, which House Republicans insist the President would sign, raises the cigarette tax (the same as the Democratic plan) but covers fewer children.

3. The Republicans ranted and raved that allowing states to enroll children in families who earn up to $83,000 as the original S-CHIP program and the reauthorization bill allowed, went to far and too many rich people were on the program. They couldn't prove that argument, but now that the second S-CHIP bill caps the enrollment at 300 percent of poverty, and the Republicans are still opposed. Can they make up their minds about what they want?

4. They oppose the current bill because they want to eliminate benefits for childless adults and want a citizenship requirement. But the second S-CHIP includes those conditions. But the Republicans still oppose it. And Bush says he'll veto it again. They are like children, and they need to sit in the corner.

When it comes right down to it, the Republicans want to exclude children from the program. That is the simple fact. And it appears that some House Republicans are willing to exchange their jobs for a vote that is in lock-step with a failed president and his failed ideology, not the interests of their constituents.

Bush Vetoes Children's Health

Behind closed doors and with the TV cameras off, Bush just vetoed the S-CHIP bill. With one stroke of his pen, he said tax cuts for the rich, loopholes for big oil, and the war on Iraq based on lies are matter more than children who need shots, their teeth fixed, expensive medicines for chronic illnesses like asthma, diabetes, or allergies.

Bush, in the name of his discredited and despicable conservative ideology, told America what his values are: lucrative private contracts for Blackwater without oversight to kill Iraqis, torture at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and spying on your phone calls rank higher in importance than making sure that working families whose children need to have tubes inserted in their ears to prevent recurring infections or operations to fix their eyesight can afford to do so.

With a stroke of his pen, he said to the children of working families, you don't count in my book, and I don't care about your future.

Bush also lied – surprise, surprise. He explained that he opposed the $5 billion dollar a year S-CHIP bill because he believes in fiscal responsibility. Lie. Over his presidency he has signed spending bill after spending bill paid for with debt mounted on the backs of the very children he scorned today with his veto. The amount he (abetted by the previous Republican-controlled Congress) personally has added to the national debt is in the trillions.

He also called the S-CHIP bill, supported by right-wing members of Congress, private insurance lobbyist, medical associations, and liberal children's advocates alike, was a kind of creeping socialism.

His gesture, by vetoing children's health, is one of the most spiteful, small and despicable acts I can imagine. But then again he led us into a war with lies and now as many as 1 million Iraqis have lost their lives.

Republicans (and any Democrats) who vote to support the president's veto should lose their jobs in 2008. They do not represent America or any version of "family values" and cannot be relied on to care for our future: our children.