The biggest issue in the 2008 election will not be Iraq, and will not even be Immigration. Healthcare insurance coverage trumps as the biggest issue in the 2008 Presidential election, this leave a large opportunity for Republicans to offer a new direction and different solution than the Democrats’ “the government will pay for it” solution.

So far the Democrats have dominated this issue. This is simply because it is another issue where the Democrats can offer a bribe to get votes: vote for the Democrat and you will get free healthcare. The Republicans have pretty much mumbled something about a problem and empathized with those that do not have coverage but have not offered any real alternative solutions. The Democrats have created an issue Insurance Coverage, defined a problem Poor Coverage and created a solution Hillary-Care. That is, there are 40 million people without heath insurance coverage; the only solution is to have the government give those people free healthcare (if this is not buying votes, then I am a liberal democrat).

If the problem as defined by the democrats is coverage, however, the solution is cost. 40 million people in America do not have healthcare because of the rising and unbearable cost. MOst of the people that do have healthcare obtain it through their employer. A large majority of uninsured people are 20-somethings that typically do not need pills or frequent visits to a healthcare provider.

Address the cost of heathcare and you address the coverage issue.

Presidential candidate John McCain addressed the issue a couple weeks ago:

“Democratic presidential candidates are not telling you these truths. They offer their usual default position: If the government would only pay for insurance everything would be fine. They promise universal coverage, whatever its cost, and the massive tax increases, mandates and government regulation that it imposes,” McCain said. “I offer a genuinely conservative vision for health care reform, which preserves the most essential value of American lives — freedom.” source

Senator McCain’s plan, although lacking in detail, calls for the right solution – the Senator wants to lower the cost by affecting the market. Specifically by promoting open-healthcare markets and removing the tax bias towards employer-based coverage.

These are two solutions within the provice of the Federal Government that warrant serious attention. For once the cost of healthcare and its corresponding insurance costs drop, a natural effect is an increase in coverage. John McCain offers a good solution, if not a talking point that presents an alternative to Hillary-Care. Additionally, depending upon the press, this issue could be the rebound issue for the McCain campaign.

Today the House failed to generate enough votes to overturn President Bush’s veto of the SCHIP State Childrens Health Insurance Program)Amendments. Never was a Veto so proper.  The bill was unambiguously designed to be vetoed so that Democrats could call Bush a “baby-hater“. The Democrats never thought this bill would pass.
Despite the Democrats exploitation of a 12 year old boy  President Bush, once again, has shown that he is a capable leader and able to enforce his policies. This will not stop the Democrats attacks, however, as less than half a percent of the American population wrote Congress to oppose the veto:

The good news is that the American people aren’t buying it. We asked you last week to send letters to Congress in support of children’s health care. So far, you’ve sent almost 198,000 letters –many, many more than we ever thought possible.

The SCHIP amendments were horrible. They called for an unnecessary increase in funding and drew funding for the increase from cigarette taxes. Democrats argued that the cigarette tax serves a double benefit in funding the bill and discouraging smoking – basically admitting that their funding center was a depreciating asset – the less people buy cigaretters – the less tax revenue is generated for SCHIP. Also the proposed Amendments unnecessarily expanded the program for families that *can* afford healthcare. The original purpose of SCHIP was to provide a program for children whose parents *could not* afford healthcare.

Moreover, the present program is being thoroughly abused by unintended and likely fraudulent recipients. As noted by House Minority Leader John Boehner, appearing on Fox News Sunday, 

“As an example, in Minnesota, 87 percent of the people enrolled in the children’s health insurance program are adults. Sixty-six percent in Wisconsin…”

That we should expland a children’s health insurance program when almost 90% of recipients in some states are in fact adults is beyond ludicrous. 

The SCHIP Amendments were weak, politically motivated, and deserved to be defeated. The resulting question is how will this affect Democrats? Will the Democratic base, fooled into thinking that Harry Reid really did want the bill passed, be so upset that the House could not overturn Bush’s veto? And if so will that lower the Democrats approval rating an provide an opening for the GOP … only time will tell …
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Or so the Democrats would have you believe. Today, George W. Bush found the political courage to exercise his veto power and stop the backdoor attempt by the Democrat Party to incrementally establish a federal health care system and expand the size and scope of the federal government.

While the motives of the Democrats may be to attempt to provide assistance to working families with children, the road to hell, as the saying goes, is paved with good intentions.  Adding $35 billion to the program, and opening the door for massive fraud - as higher income individuals, who may already have private coverage, take advantage of the free federal/state subsidy – is poor policy, and does nothing to assist the poorest Americans who were the beneficiaries of the original legislation.

What the Democrats choose not recognize is that federal health insurance programs for children, or anyone else, is not the province of the federal government. While they ballyhoo about spending for the War in Iraq, rather than on children’s health, what they fail to recognize is that making war (and paying for it) is the central and constitutionally prescribed duty of the federal government. Comparing the two expenditures is akin to berating your mailman for not cutting your lawn.

If the Democrat Party wants government-run health care, they ought to put forth the idea solely where it belongs – the nation’s 50 state houses.  The notion the federal government is not bound to performing only the duties authorized by the Constitution is not only expensive, but it undermines the entire foundations of the Republic and replaces a nation of laws with a nation of lawmakers.

Mitt Romney made a stop in a greasy-spoon somewhere in New England and ran across a low income voter with healthcare issues: high co-pays, high prescription co-pays, etc. She is also upset that politicians get to ride around in their fancy cars. Romney does a great job and provides a very good response for the concerned citizen. What Romney should have said in the end is, “If you don’t like New Hampshire, move to Massachusetts”.

When Bill Clinton was elected to office in 1992, the cornerstone of his fist term domestic agenda was national health care reform, and it was a program he delegated to First Lady Hillary Clinton.  Her plan, popularly derided as HillaryCare, was a massive federal takeover of the personal well being of American citizens, and would have resulted in a colossal and costly federal bureaucracy designed to doll out medicine to the populace.  The public reaction to HillaryCare and Clinton’s first term was the largest GOP victory in history.

15 years later, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is running to be the next president of the United States, and one of the central policy objectives of her administration would be the adoption of universal health care.  What exactly that proposal will be is unknown, but most will concede that it will require the adoption of a massive federal bureaucracy and tax increases to implement it, and will be part of what Mrs. Clinton describes as our need to replace an “on your own” society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity.

It doesn’t require a political scientist’s expertise to recognize that Mrs. Clinton’s true intentions are nothing short of a giant step toward open, unabashed, socialism.

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