Republicans can't stand free enterprise

It is kind of a shame that the S-CHIP expansion has to be funded with gimmicks like sin taxes, and this is troubling tobacco-state Democrats. But funding health care for children is so cheap and so vital, I really do think that the eventual benefits to society far outweigh the costs, both morally and financially, even (savings in catastrophic care for kids will be major). And Ezra Klein, in a significant column at TAPPED, explains that George W. Bush walked right into a trap by opposing it:

It's been too long since this town had an argument that was fought on forthrightly ideological terms. And that is what the argument over the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) is proving -- not an argument over a particular program, but an increasingly desperate rear-guard action by the White House (and the Medical-Industrial Complex that funds it) to block any types of public insurance that could push this country one step closer to universal health care [...]

...it is rather hard to oppose fully funding the program that covers uninsured children. So the White House has decided to make this a referendum on government-provided health care instead. This decision is a godsend to Democrats, who should contentedly accept Bush's willingness to equate health care for children with public health care, and allow this to become exactly as grand a battle as Bush appears willing to make it.

Bush, after all, is not a man unacquainted with the wonders of government care. As the San Francisco Chronicle's David Lazarus has noted, this steadfast opposition to public care is "coming from a man who just underwent a colonoscopy performed at the taxpayer-funded, state-of-the-art medical facility at Camp David by an elite team of doctors from the taxpayer-funded National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md." It might be worth it for the Democrats to ask why he should receive such gold-plated care from the government, but the nation's uninsured children should be barred from public coverage.

It might also behoove them to ask why the GOP appears so afraid of public competition. S-CHIP, after all, is not a compulsory program. It is open to those who qualify, but only extended to those who sign up. Any family who believes that private insurance would do better by lil' Johnny can send away for Aetna with nary a word from a bureaucrat. What scares Bush and his financial backers is that they won't.

Republicans have NEVER been interested in the free market. They believe in corporate welfare to give them a competitive advantage, whether it's over a government program or a small business supplier. S-CHIP, which is wildly popular and effective, is a Republican's worst nightmare because it pierces the balloon that only private enterprise can be efficient in delivering services. That's simply not true, and while I sigh at the use of gimmick sin taxes to fund it, that's why I fully support nailing Republicans to the wall on this issue in the starkest terms possible. Something like "the GOP wants kids to die."