Category — SCHIP

The United States Chamber of Commerce recently honored Peter Roskam for proving in his first term to be “an effective ally to the business community”.

Sounds great until you realize what exactly “being an effective ally to the business community” means.

Put simply, it means consistently voting against the interests of the majority of citizens in your district and giving big business exactly what it demands.

It means means Roskam voting against reducing the dependence on fossil fuels that is threatening our national security and destroying our environment by requiring minimum standards for the percentage of electricity generated using renewable sources of energy.

It means Roskam voting against tax incentives for energy conservation and development of clean, renewable energy sources because they are funded by the repeal of tax breaks to big oil companies now enjoying huge profits at our expense every time we fill up our tanks.

It means Roskam voting against the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007 which would have insured that Illinois’ uninsured children receive the kind of health care that Roskam’s own kids get at taxpayer expense.

It means Roskam standing up for the interests of big drug companies rather than allowing the Medicare program to negotiate for better prices on prescription drugs.

It means Roskam voting against protection of his constituents right to equal pay for equal work. And their right to organize.

And it means Roskam voting against protecting middle class taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

So congratulations on your big award, Peter, and thanks for nothing. Its time we had a new Representative in Congress who works for us and not for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Peter Roskam continued his self-declared war on “wasteful spending” and “misguided policies” by voting yet again today against the expansion of SCHIP (HR 3963, Children’s Health Insurance Program Extension and Improvement).

The vote was to override the President’s veto of the bill in December. Today’s vote failed to achieve enough votes thanks to the intransigence of Roskam and many of his Roadblock Republican colleagues. Yes, the same Roskam who has enjoyed complaining about excessive partisanship while voting a straight party line in an attempt to obstruct progress by the Democrats in Congress.

This bill, if enacted, would provide health care to 10 million currently uninusred children. Uninsured children are not among Roskam’s legislative priorities. In Roskam’s view, the money needs to be saved to provide aid programs for big business and big tax cuts for his wealthy neighbors.

As an elected member of Congress, Peter Roskam enjoys, courtesy of the taxpayers, an annual salary of $165,200. (He didn’t get a raise this year, but his colleagues received one in every year since 1997, presumably as a reward to themselves for squashing any increase to the minimum wage for you and me). He is also eligible for a retirement plan with a pension of up to 80% of final salary, allowances for personal staff, office expenses, travel and postage, and, of course, a health plan.

Roskam, his wife, and his children are all eligible to receive taxpayer-funded health insurance under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). He can choose any one of a couple of dozen different benefit plans depending upon his needs and preferences.

Now Peter Roskam has a plan to meet the health care needs of uninsured Illinois children. Roskam’s plan, as expected, offers neither quite as much flexibility as Peter and his family enjoy, nor quite as rich a benefit package, but that is understandable. But let’s see how the plans stack up: what Pete get’s for his family through FEHBP vs. what an uninsured Illinois child gets under his proposal. (We don’t know, of course, what coverage Roskam has elected, so we have to use a representative plan for comparative purposes).

First, the taxpayer-funded benefit package for Pete and his family:

• Out of pocket maximum per person: $3,000
• Out of pocket maximum for the family: $6,000
• Annual deductible: None
• Emergency room: Covered 100% after $100 copay
• Hospital inpatient: Covered 100% after $150/day copay for the first 5 days
• Hospital outpatient: Covered 100% after $30 copay
• Inpatient surgeon fees: Covered 100%
• Outpatient surgeon fees: Covered 100%
• Other inpatient doctor fees: Covered 100% after $20 copay
• Primary doctor office visits: Covered 100% after $20 copay
• Specialist office visits: Covered 100% after $30 copay
• Outpatient doctor tests: Covered 100% after $30 copay
• Brand-name drug from local pharmacy: 100% after $25 copay
• Preventive dental: Covered
• Restorative dental: Covered
• Orthodontia: Covered
• Vision exam: Covered
• Eyeglasses and contacts: Covered

Now the Roskam plan for the uninsured children of Illinois:

• Out of pocket maximum per person: No maximum
• Out of pocket maximum for the family: No maximum
• Annual deductible: NA
• Emergency room: Not covered
• Hospital inpatient: Not covered
• Hospital outpatient: Not covered
• Inpatient surgeon fees: Not covered
• Outpatient surgeon fees: Not covered
• Other inpatient doctor fees: Not covered
• Primary doctor office visits: Not covered
• Specialist office visits: Not covered
• Outpatient doctor tests: Not covered
• Brand-name drug from local pharmacy: Not covered
• Preventive dental: Not covered
• Restorative dental: Not covered
• Orthodontia: Not covered
• Vision exam: Not covered
• Eyeglasses and contacts: Not covered

Seeing the two plans side-by-side, and having had no small experience in health care, I’d have to say Pete’s plan for Illinois’ children doesn’t look so good. In fact, it seems to me that, by voting against SCHIP, Pete is telling us “I’ve got mine, the rest of you can go fuck yourselves.”

Give Pete a call at (630) 893-9670 and tell him to vote for SCHIP the next time around because you want for your kids the kind of security that we pay for his kids to have.

On Thursday, 10/25/07, Peter Roskam demonstrated his continued opposition to providing health care to unserved Illinois children by voting against HR 3963, the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. Contrary to the will of the majority of the American people, Roskam sided with President Bush in opposing the bill, presumably because it would use money better spent on wars and on tax cuts for the wealthy. Roskam also expressed fear that the measure might also, God forbid, provide health care to illegal alien children. This despite the bill’s specific provision against funding for non-legal residents (section 605). In Roskam’s view, I guess, it is better to provide care to no children rather than risk the possibility of unintentionally helping even one non-legal resident. Despite Roskam’s vote, the bill passed 265 to 159. After consideration by the Senate, the bill will go back to the President who will, no doubt, veto it again.

Today, Peter “Rubber Stamp” Roskam voted against overriding President Bush’s veto of H.R. 976, the Children’s Health Insurance Program Re-authorization Act. This came as no great surprise, given that it was the President’s desire that he do so and given that he had dutifully voted against the bill the first time around.

SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, overseen by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, provides funding to States to provide health insurance to children of families who can’t afford private health plans but whose incomes aren’t low enough to qualify them for Medicaid. The failed bill would have increased the funding for the program by $35 billion without adding to the federal budget deficit, the money for the increase coming from an increase in the federal tax on tobacco.

H.R.976 would have extended health care coverage to millions of presently uninsured children. President Bush has used a variety of specious arguments to prevent its passage and Roskam, as expected, has fallen in to step. FactCheck.org has done a good analysis of the false claims that Bush, Roskam and other Republicans have been making in an effort to defeat the bill, so there is no need to reattempt that here. The American Academy of Pediatrics produced a fact sheet that provides some clarification regarding the program’s implementation in Illinois.

Roskam has attempted to defend his stance, suggesting that the bill was irresponsible because it “does not maintain the intent of the original program – to cover children in need. Instead, it becomes an open-ended entitlement program where illegal immigrants have access to this taxpayer funded program.” Roskam instead joined with others to propose an extension of the current SCHIP funding by an additional 18 months saying that it “guarantees that Congress will be wise when it spends precious taxpayer dollars.”

What Roskam failed to note was that this dangerous bill had been endorsed by numerous radical organizations bent on destroying our American way of life - organizations as subversive as the American Hospital Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, American Hospital Association, Healthcare Leadership Council, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Ascension Health, Kaiser Permanente, American Medical Association, Johnson & Johnson, Families USA, Federation of American Hospitals, American Academy of Family Physicians, UnitedHealth Group, Catholic Health Association, American Public Health Association, March of Dimes, National Association of Children’s Hospitals, and that most nefarious special interest group, the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Worse still, the bill was favored by a majority of Americans, and given their track record on Iraq it is clear that they can’t be trusted. Well thank God we still have faithful Republican’s like Roskam protecting our “precious taxpayer dollars” and standing firm against the armies of illegal alien children that threaten to overtake us.