REP. TODD TIAHRT: SCHIP IS POLITICAL TUG-OF-WAR

Kansas.com 09/26/2007

"Ensuring the welfare of America's children should be top priority among congressional members. That's why I supported SCHIP when it was created by the Republican Congress in 1997. I would continue to offer my support this year; however, Democrats have politicized this program and used it as a platform to take one giant step toward a national socialized health care system."

It's always disappointing when a member of Congress argues against the straw man of "socialized medicine" when nobody is advocating for a socialized system in which the government owns all parts of the health system. It can work: look at the VA, and imagine the VA if it weren't underfunded and forced to outsource parts of its responsibilities to those wonderful "privateers" (remember the Walter Reed debacle - outsourcing).

But virtually nobody wants socialized medicine. Virtually everyone whom I've ever heard advocate for universal coverage advocates for a single payer system where we, the taxpayers, pay for our health insurance via taxes, and it is administered through a system like Medicare is right now. Medicare contracts with private companies that operate under Medicare rules (our rules, by the way, Congress sets the rules) and pay hospitals, doctors, etc. No socialized medicine, thank you; Medicare for all, please.

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