SCHIP Votes in House and Senate Critical to Ohio Budget

Last night the House of Representatives, ignoring a veto threat by President Bush, voted 225-204 to reauthorize and pump another $50 billion into the popular ten-year-old SCHIP program, which allows children of the working poor (above the poverty line, but unable to afford private insurance) to enroll in Medicaid. The ceiling for eligibility would be raised from 200% to 300% of the federal definition of poverty. The money would come partly from slashing Medicare payments to HMOs under the Medicare Advantage program, which Democrats say has resulted in massive overpayments, and increased taxes on tobacco products. It is estimated that the change would increase the number of children participating in SCHIP from 5 million to 11 million. In Ohio, all seven Democrats voted in favor and all 11 Republicans voted against.

Passage of the SCHIP expansion is critical to provisions in the state budget proposed by Gov. Ted Strickland (D) and passed overwhelmingly by the General Assembly. Strickland sent a letter to Ohio's Congressional delegation on July 18th, pointing out that "more than 145,000 children in Ohio currently receive health care services under SCHIP, totaling $290 million per year" in combined state and federal funding. Without "adequate federal funding in the SCHIP reauthorization bill," Ohio will "likely experience shortfalls of $6.8 million in federal fiscal year 2008 and $98.6 million in federal fiscal year 2009." Moreover, the recently passed biennial budget "includes an expansion of SCHIP coverage to children in families with incomes between 200 percent and 300 percent of the federal poverty level," which is "expected to provide health coverage for 20,000 additional Ohio children." That provision is dependent on passage of the expansion by Congress.

Republicans appear to be banking on opposition by seniors (a reliable voting bloc) to the cutting of Medicare payments to HMOs as cover for opposing expansion of the popular program. They also insist that the expansion of SCHIP coverage is a step toward government-run national health care or "socialized medicine." Advocates for children's health applaud the expansion of coverage to families who could not otherwise obtain health insurance for their children.

If Bush follows through on his veto threat, Congress will presumably take up the matter of reauthorizing the program again before it expires on September 30th.

Bush Nominee for Surgeon General is Anti-Gay Zealot Who Compared Human Genitalia to Pipe Fittings

"Under what rock precisely do they find these people?" A friend forwarded this news report about Bush's nominee for Surgeon General with the foregoing comment, which about sums it up (emphasis added):

Bush's Choice for Top Doc Compared Human Genitalia to Pipe Fittings and Said Homosexual Practices Can Cause Injury or Death

President Bush's nominee for surgeon general, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., wrote a paper in 1991 that purported to make the medical argument that homosexuality is unnatural and unhealthy. Doctors who reviewed the paper derided it as prioritizing political ideology over science, and Democratic aides on Capitol Hill say the paper will make his confirmation hearings problematic, if not downright bruising. ...

... Holsinger also belongs to a church that offers a ministry to "cure" gays of the sexual orientation [see more on this below]. ...

Holsinger's paper argued that male and female genitalia are complementary -- so much so "that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming pipe fittings either the male fitting or the female fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other." Body parts used for gay sex are not complementary, he wrote. "When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur." ...

Professor Eli Coleman, Director of the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota Medical School said that the paper seems to have a pre-1970s view of human sexuality. "I can't imagine that any scientific journal would be able to publish this material because of its very narrow views of homosexuality," he said.

In fact, if one of his students handed the paper in, Coleman would give it a failing grade, he said. "I find it rather outdated in terms of its scientific knowledge and also narrow in its view of homosexuality," Coleman said. "It concerns me because I think our public policy really should be based upon best available science."

"It's a totally faulty paper. The man doesn't know anything about human sexuality," said June M. Reinisch, Ph.D., director emeritus of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender & Reproduction. "There's clearly a political agenda in this paper. This is not a scientific paper." ... Reinisch, who was director of the Kinsey Institute when Holsinger wrote this paper, said that if Holsinger "is going to come up with this position in 2007 I think I can clearly say that he is not qualified to be surgeon general." ...

Actually, Holsinger doesn't just attend the church with the anti-gay iminstry, he founded it:

Holsinger founded the Hope Springs Community Church, a "recovery ministry" that caters to alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts and those seeking to "walk out of that [homosexual] lifestyle," according to its pastor Rev. David Calhoun. When not busy endorsing ex-gay conversion therapy, Holsinger served on the highest court of the United Methodist Church where he voted to remove a lesbian pastor from her position.