I ask because I don’t know and I can’t be bothered to do the homework.
I gather two things: Vetoing SCHIP denies 12 (?) million American children of working-class families access to SCHIP. Ogo’s/Eabo’s argument against SCHIP is that there is no punishment for illegal immigrant families who might enroll in SCHIP.
The second thing I gather from the comments is that there is no evidence to support the claim that illegal immigrants will be abusing this program in large measure. But let’s forget that for a moment.
What’s the “worse case scenario” number of illegal immigrants that might enroll in SCHIP? I mean, there are 12 million illegal immigrants in the US, 1.8 million of which are children. All 1.8 million of them can’t be clamoring for SCHIP action? Let’s be generous and say 50% of these children will apply for SCHIP (that doesn’t even mean 50% will be approved). That’s 900,000 and that sounds way to high to me, especially since it would be illegal to attempt such a thing.
So, what is being said here is that the government is willing to deny 12 million American children health insurance because several hundred thousand illegal immigrant children might also receive this benefit.
Is this not a classic example of cutting off one’s nose to spite his face? Tell all the families who will be denied an affordable option to insure their kids that they are undeserving simply because Ogo thinks that it’s not enough that the law excludes illegal immigrants, it needs to punish them.
If I was amongst the parents of the 12 million children in need, I wouldn’t care who received the benefit as long as my child was covered. And given the recent veto, it wouldn’t be immigrants standing in the way of my child getting SCHIP, it would be people like Jim Ogonowski and President Bush.
Where is my logic flawed? Is this any way to run a country?
At least every single one of them that wants to go on record and risk the scrutiny that would likely get them deported.
Or call the fire department? Use the court system? Use public transportation?
There are any number of government programs and services out there that illegal aliens use, yet no one would suggest that we shouldn’t have them. It seems to me that SCHIP is opposed for other reasons, and that the illegal alien equation is a red herring.