In a post about how Rahm Emmanual throwing immigration rights under the bus of political expedience, Chris Bowers has captured perfectly the soul of the current Democratic Party:
If we think it helps us to win elections by scapegoating some of our minority allies, imagine how well we would do if we scapegoated all of our minority allies? After all, if there is anyone who hurts Democrats more than their allies, I have no idea who that is. Let's attack them all to the right of Republicans, in order to shield ourselves from Republican attacks.
You can add the middle class to the list of expendable supporters as well. The latest SCHIP compromise has come down. As far as I can tell it's going to be nonsense meant to allow the GOP a win and to grind deeper the humiliation of non-documented workers and middle class America. For the Dems those are features, not bugs.
Look for it to cap eligibility at 300% of poverty, which isn't good news for the family of four making $62K in an expensive area of the country and faced with $11K flying directly out the window to pay for health insurance. Since the goal of the right is to make sure that middle class America gets the message that it doesn't deserve any help from the government it supports or the economy it sustains, also look for all sorts of enrollment restrictions communicated in language that "puts low-income children first." This despite the fact that the bill BushCo vetoed already put low-income children first. Of course non-documented workers will be vilified and protections against their thieving schemes (largely non-existant, similar to voter fraud) will be amped up, making it more difficult for anyone to apply.
I'm staving off crippling depression by imagining that in the future some truly progressive leader will remind middle class voters of this day when they were aggressively prevented from getting any help surviving America's devastating health insurance crisis, but what's more likely is that some enterprising movement conservatarian will use this moment to destroy SCHIP completely by stoking hatred of the poor: undeserving lucky duckies, who get their insurance for free.
...for the family of four making $62K in an expensive area of the country and faced with $11K flying directly out the window to pay for health insurance.
And, after their insurance premiums, they are still living on "above average" income.
I guess the other 65% of Americans should be ashamed...
Posted by: Scott | October 25, 2007 at 08:11 PM
Check out EPI's family budget calculator and then see if you want to be so cavalier about helping people meet crippling health insurance costs. And that data is three years old.
Posted by: eRobin | October 25, 2007 at 10:00 PM