SCHIP

When you read stories like this one from KOMU, it becomes pretty clear why the GOP leadership picked Roy Blunt to lead their Health Care Solutions Group this year: the man has some seriously awful votes in his record that he will struggle to explain away.  KOMU:

7th District Congressman Roy Blunt, a top contender for Missouri's open Senate seat in 2010, has a much different approach to health care reform [than Senator McCaskill], and his voting record shows it.

He voted three times against expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Plan, which would have covered up to 6 million more children.

In 2007, he voted against a measure that would require pharmaceutical companies to negotiate prices for Medicaid prescription drugs.

He also voted in favor of a measure that would allow hospitals to deny a person non-emergency treatment if that person couldn't pay their Medicare co-pay.

It used to be the case that "when government forces a person to work and pay the fruit of their hard earned labor and gives it to the benefit of someone else...that is slavery."

However, now that Abolitionist Rob Schaaf has decided that high-risk adults who'd be covered under the new House-Senate budget compromise "really deserve our help," and we're no longer talking about slavery. 

Contrast that with poor children who'd benefit from SCHIP are a bunch of greedy, lazy jerks who want to destroy The American Dream. That was slavery, because if there's any segment of the population that does not "really deserve our help" -- it's poor children.

See the difference?

As the House Ethics Committee prepares to consider a condemnation of Rep. Rob Schaaf's speech equating children's health care with slavery, Schaaf remains defiant and proud of his speech. Amazingly, he denies that he likened SCHIP to slavery and promises that if the Ethics Committee condemns his actions, he will "frame it and put it on the wall."

To refresh your memory, here's the speech in which Schaaf didn't equate SCHIP with slavery, and didn't say that Abraham Lincoln "tried to end [slavery] in this country, and they [supporters of the SCHIP proposal] want to bring it back!" 

What a guy.

From the esteemed historian Dr. Rob Schaaf, we bring you the full speech on how providing health care to children is like slavery.

God Bless America.

Hands down, the most repulsive comments of last night's debate on the House floor came from Representative Rob Schaaf (R-St Joseph), who said that providing health care to poor children through SCHIP is just like slavery.

Schaaf:

When government forces a person to work and pay the fruit of their hard earned labor and gives it to the benefit of someone else -- and we have proof people who have SCHIP program can, because they pay the premium now -- that is slavery. That is what it is.

For some context, this is the program that Schaaf says would enslave Missourians:

Nixon and the House Democrats had proposed eliminating premiums for enrollees whose families earned up to 225 percent of the federal poverty level — $3,975 a month for a family of four. For families earning between 225 and 300 percent of the poverty level, premiums would have been limited to $50 a month.

The changes would have provided insurance to about 20,000 more children, according to budget documents and the state Department of Social Services.

Currently, families earning more than 150 percent of the poverty level pay premiums ranging from $12 to $334 or more a month, depending on income and family size.