Contradiction abounds in requirement to provide free birth control

Friday, the Obama Administration announced final regulations requiring health care plans to cover birth control without charging any co-pays or deductibles to their participants. The requirement will begin Aug. 1.

The administrative rule will require organizations like religious schools and Catholic hospitals to offer birth control - at no cost - to employees covered by their health plans, though not until 2013. Houses of worship are exempt.

I'm certain that many people are going to be writing about the infringement on religion, and the Catholic religion specifically, but I want to focus on the clear contradiction in thought: that requiring health care plans to provide contraception (or any service/treatment/drug) without a co-pay or deductible somehow 'saves money.'

First, there isn't anyone who doesn't have 'access' to contraception. Any person can purchase condoms and anti-spermicide at the drug store counter - and the effectiveness of each is increased by using them together.

Any woman can get a prescription for birth control from numerous outlets. A doctor may recommend a specific type over another based upon the woman's personal and medical history, but there are so many doctors willing to write the prescriptions that no woman is without 'access.'

This regulation isn't about 'access' - it's about a woman not having to pay for the contraception she wants to use.

From The Hill:

"Birth control is not just basic health care for women, it is an economic concern," Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. "This common sense decision means that millions of women, who would otherwise pay $15 to $50 a month, will have access to affordable birth control, helping them save hundreds of dollars each year."

As Richards readily admits, women already have access, but they're paying "$15 to $50 per month." With this new rule, they won't be required to pay anything - at least, not up front.

But someone always pays, hence the contradiction.

The manufacturer will still need to be compensated for the product they provide. So while the individual woman won't have to fork over any money at the time she actually get her contraceptive, insurance companies will still have a cost that will need to be covered. Without the ability to charge the individual user, they'll raise their rates on everyone to cover the expense.

This means higher rates for all - including the ones who think they're now getting their contraception for free. Talk about a contradiction between hype and reality.

So of course, it should come as no surprise that the overwhelming comments on the HHS rule were in favor of the requirement. All those people who supported it think they'll no longer have to pay. But that's just a bigger comment on their intelligence and reasoning skills - or perhaps our education system - than it is on the rule itself.

So what about seniors who don't need contraception? Or a single person who is celibate? What about men and women who have had a medical procedure that eliminates the need for contraception? Or individuals who are sterile?

All of these people will now be covering the costs so some can have the luxury of not having any out-of-pocket expenses for a product only they are using.

This is un-American. And it's no different than if my co-worker stole money out of my wallet in order to pay for her birth control pills.

Scary reality: $107 trillion in liabilities

An editorial in the Charleston Daily Mail spells it out in stark - but factual terms: we're in trouble because (t)he nation can't pay for Social Security and the health entitlement programs it has now.

$107 trillion in liabilities
Congress needs to fix existing programs if it creates new ones

AS Americans listened to people yammer on about "death panels" and other distortions of some of the health "reform" proposals circulating in Congress, larger and more important questions have gone unasked and unanswered.

First on the list should be: Are members of Congress out of touch with reality?

The nation can't pay for Social Security and the health entitlement programs it has now.

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports for 2009, released in early May, laid out the situation plainly:

Social Security and Medicare have a combined unfunded liability of almost $107 trillion.

According to Pamela Villarreal, a senior policy analyst with the National Center for Policy Analysis, that's about seven times the size of the American economy, and 10 times as much as today's national debt.

Members of Congress have, over the decades, promised Americans $107 trillion more in benefits under these two existing programs over the next 75 years than they have provided for in taxes.

Medicare alone has an unfunded liability of almost $38 trillion.

By some people's reckoning, when today's college students reach retirement in about 2054, the burden of paying Social Security and Medicare benefits would consume one in three dollars of taxable payroll.

Yet some in Congress would create a costly new medical entitlement program to deflect attention from the fact that they don't want to deal with the problems they already face.

All responsible Americans should insist on better than that.

If corporations had such unfunded obligations, we'd have members of Congress demanding appearances and accountability in front of committees and lots of cameras. But they ignore their own house while complaining about others.

And these same people want to create a new government program based on the same pyramid scheme that puts non-elected people into jail?

Can you say stuck on stupid?

Health care bill is still bad, even without 'public option'

The latest news over the weekend is that President Barack Obama may be willing to drop the 'public option' from the health care bills currently in Congress.

The House version, HR 3200, is the only one really available to review because the Senate has yet to publish any of their voted-on versions.

The hope by some is that elimination of the 'public option' would make every day Americans (who are opposed to government takeover of the medical industry) less resistant to the bill. However, there is still much to dislike in HR 3200 and plenty of reasons for this bill to be soundly defeated.

One of the arguments that routinely get mentioned is that nothing in the bill takes over a single hospital or a single doctor. But you don't need to physically come in and take ownership of a hospital to be able to control what goes on in that facility.

Whenever government can dictate what you do, how you do it, what you charge for it and tax you or fine you for non-compliance, government has 'taken over.' And that's what this bill would do.

HR 3200 mandates that individuals must obtain insurance or be taxed. So if you're a healthy young person who'd rather save money for purchasing a house than pay several hundred dollars a month for insurance - too bad. Government knows what is best for you and if you try to make that decision on your own, you will have to pay government for the freedom of making such a decision.

Interestingly a large number of the "46 million uninsured" are young people who have access to insurance but choose to forgo it in order to set their own priorities with their funds. That's why the 'buy insurance or be taxed' provision is in the bill.

But don't believe just my words, read the bill. It says so in Section 401, Tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage. From the bill:

"(a) TAX IMPOSED.—In the case of any individual who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of:

(1) the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income for the taxable year ...

(2) the amount of gross income specified in section 6012(a)(1)...”

Note, too, that if you're without insurance for "any time during the year," you become subject to the tax. So if you've decided not to purchase COBRA coverage for the time between leaving one job and when your insurance kicks in for your new job, you get taxed - even if it's just for a week.

How many people routinely make such a decision, especially if they're healthy?

The bill also gives government the ability to determine what type of coverage you have. It's section 122 (b) which dictates the minimum services to be covered, including maternity and well-baby care. Now, that may be great for a young couple who wants to have kids, but what about older individuals or those who cannot have children? Why should their insurance be required to provide that service - and why should they be required to pay for something they won't ever use?

This section also requires a 70% actuarial value of the benefits. While this may be a rather technical requirement to most, it means that the current option of choosing to pay for routine services like doctor visits, but carrying insurance for major illnesses or injuries is illegal once the bill is law.

Then there is the entire Title IV Quality, Subtitle A Comparative Effectiveness Research section 1401. Under the provisions of this section, government sets up a new bureaucracy (including board members who get per diem payments as well as travel reimbursements and staff to carry out the terms of the bill) to determine what treatments will be approved.

Included is the authority to use data from electronic medical records for determining the comparative effectiveness of treatments. I wonder, because I do not know, if they can access such records without our permission. The bill does give the newly established research center the authority to obtain data from any agency or department of government and from other sources.

This section also allows the government to determine national priorities for research. I can only wonder how many lobbyists various disease foundations will have to hire to get their disease on the national priority list? And will the national priorities end up like Oregon? In that state, they rank treatments

"for various diseases and conditions, currently from 1 to 680, in order of priority. The health care dollars available determine which priorities are met. As program costs have grown, the list of covered procedures has become shorter.

In 2009, the state will pay only for the first 503 procedures. It won't pay to remove ear wax, treat vocal cord paralysis, or repair deformities of one's upper body and limbs. It will fund therapy for conduct disorder (age 18 and under), selective mutism in childhood (a prolonged refusal to talk in social situations where talking is normal), pathological gambling, and mild depression and other mood disorders.

Reordering Priorities. Surprisingly, between 2002 and 2009 there was a fairly radical reordering of the plain language priorities. A great many life-saving procedures that ranked high in 2002 have been relegated to a much lower position in 2009, while procedures that are only tangentially related to life and death have climbed to the top. (While extensive code lists define actual treatment, most people must rely on the plain language to judge list adequacy.)

For example, medical treatment for Type I diabetes, which ranked second in 2002, was demoted to 10th place in 2009. Oddly, given that not providing treatment for Type I diabetes is a death sentence, it has been placed behind spending on smoking cessation, sterilization and drug abuse treatment. And this is not an isolated case."

In Oregon in 2002, appendicitis ranked 12th for treatment priorities but in 2009, it dropped to 84th, behind treatment for asthma (11th), lactose intolerance (13th) and abortion (41st).

While the Oregon priorities are for treatments, will the federal government's priority list for research experience similar changes? We don't know - that question hasn't been answered by any Congressional representatives, yet.

Another aspect of the comparative effectiveness research section is the 'oversight' the government will exert. Under the current terms of the bill, the government will decide if independent research on medical issues is 'credible' and 'consistent' with the government standards (which the center will also establish). They can 'recommend' the research methodologies. What happens if you don't take their recommendation on methodologies? Will your research be determined 'credible' if you'd not done it the way they say you should?

Government also gets to set rates. According to Sec. 223, Payment rates for items and services, the government gets to 'correct' payments that are excessive or deficient. This also means they get to determine the definition of 'excessive' and 'deficient.'

(d) CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this subtitle shall be construed as limiting the Secretary’s authority to correct for payments that are excessive or deficient, taking into account the provisions of section 221(a) and the amounts paid for similar health care providers and services under other Exchange-participating health benefits plans.

(e) CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this subtitle shall be construed as affecting the authority of the Secretary to establish payment rates, including payments to provide for the more efficient delivery of services, such as the initiatives provided for under section 224.

Even without the public option, this bill takes over our health care system by dictating what is covered, how much is paid for it, what treatments are better than others and whether or not you should get such treatments.

It uses the force of government, through taxation and the Internal Revenue Service, to penalize for non-compliance, which, in effect, makes the government the decision-maker for your health care needs and wants.

Oh, sure, you get to decide which doctor to use, they claim, hoping that you'll see that 'choice' as sufficient liberty when it comes to your health. But your relationship with that practitioner is dictated from beginning to end, so it's really not much of a choice, is it?

We cannot be dissuaded on the opposition to the bill simply because one aspect might be removed. The entire bill is bad and we must be vigilant in pointing out and opposing all the other aspects that result in a government take over of the industry.

And no - the insurance companies have not paid me for this opinion.

When policies fail, demonize

The health care 'reform' that Democrats and President Barack Obama are pushing is failing to gain support among the American public.

Citizens, outraged over the issue, are angrily confronting their representatives in town halls and forums within their districts. As a result, representatives are calling out the police and acting indignant over the outrage and opposition they're getting from their bosses - but that's another subject for another day.

So what's a politician to do?

Create an enemy.

Start talking about how some entity is "taking advantage" of you, or is "evil, immoral and villainous" in how they deal with you. Demonize a particular industry so you can rally the masses in an emotional appeal 'for' you and 'against' someone else.

It's a tried and true tactic from a political perspective, though usually it's used on prior officeholders. Democratic Party strategist Liz Chadderdon recently said:

"I think Bush-bashing has been alive and well since '07 and, since it keeps working, why not use it? Voters have short memories..."

So if it works, why not?

And that's the game plan for the health care bill.

Sen. Dick Durbin jumped on the bandwagon attacking insurance companies.

“The health insurance companies are some of the most profitable businesses in America. By fighting change they're protecting their bottom line.”

Yep - there's a profitable business industry employing and providing services for millions. They must be bad.

Now, remember, these are for-profit organizations. You pay them an agreed-upon amount in the hopes that you never have to take advantage of what they are guaranteeing in return. And if you do have to take advantage of their coverage, you're pretty sure the total you've paid them over time is going to be less than what they end up paying on your behalf. That's the way insurance works.

But Durbin wants you to think negatively about these companies - because they want to make a profit on behalf of their shareholders (who probably include many individuals very similar to you). If he's going to get you to support his plan to put them out of business - and that's what the legislation will do - he has to get you to hate these companies, or at least distrust them so you want what he's offering instead.

Hypocritical House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went so far as to call these businesses, 'the villains':

"It is somewhat immoral what they are doing. Of course, they have been immoral all along how they have treated the people that they insure," MSNBC's Luke Russert quoted her as saying. "They are the villains in this."

Of course, taking campaign donations from such villainous, immoral entities is perfectly okay for her - but we shouldn't trust them. Oh no!

I hate the class warfare approach to politics these days. I don't believe that people with money are evil because they have more than me. I don't believe I'm entitled to the fruits of their labor simply because they have more fruit. I believe I should be rewarded for my hard work and my labors. I should not have my fruit taken and given to others who haven't worked as hard or for as long as I have.

I also don't believe that profit is a dirty word, or that for-profit companies are evil because they exist to make money on behalf of their shareholders and owners. I don't believe I need to have an enemy to make me 'feel' positively about a policy that's being promoted.

Most importantly, I believe that the need to create an enemy in order to get people on a particular side of an issue clearly demonstrates the weakness of that position in the first place. And our immediate reaction to such a ploy should be distrust and rejection the tactic, the person using it and the policy.

But with many people, appealing to their emotions and using the politics of envy and greed, works. I just hope we can stop 'feeling' and start 'thinking' before it's too late.

Why not duplicate an insurance that works?

Numerous times I've questioned why politicians and President Barack Obama are going the socialized medicine route when it comes to health care and not looking at how auto and home insurance systems work instead.

Now comes this post by Eli Lehrer, "Auto Insurance Works - So Why Doesn’t Health Insurance?" which wonders the same thing.

Those looking for solutions to America’s health insurance bills can see a lot to admire in the auto insurance market. Auto coverage purchasers throughout the country have a wide choice of providers, a fair number of different options within those plans, and benefit from vigorous price competition in the market. In states that don’t monkey too much with the auto market even the worst drivers can usually find a private carrier to cover them. All states but New Hampshire, furthermore, have “financial responsibility” — the individual mandate — that requires car owners to have either insurance or another means of paying for any accidents they cause. This last feature, in particular, has attracted praise from Republicans and Democrats alike.

read more...

Uh-Oh! Private insurance is not an option

From the National Center for Policy Analysis:

PRIVATE INSURANCE IS NOT AN OPTION
It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).

The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised -- with, of course, exceptions, says IBD:

* Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it.

* Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither:

* Drawn by a public option that will be 30 percent to 40 percent cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage.

* The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program.

* That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers; this could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."

What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law, says IBD.

The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years, says IBD. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.

Source: Editorial, "It's Not An Option," Investor's Business Daily, July 15, 2009.

For text:

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=482329

Here is a link to the Senate's Health Care Bill

Here is the link to the House version. HR 3200 American's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.

Socialized medicine - why would our outcome be any different?

From the National Center for Policy Analysis:

HEALTH FREEZES OVER

The London Telegraph is reporting that the doctors believe "smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations." The reason for the hard hearts in Britain: The government-run National Health Service (NHS) can no longer afford to provide free treatment for everyone.

So for Britons, health care rationing isn't just a threat, it's a reality, says Investor's Business Dailey (IBD):

The Telegraph says roughly one in 10 hospitals -- usually those with financial problems -- now deny some surgery to smokers and the obese.

* So that billions of dollars can be cut from the bloated NHS budget, they have ruled that some advanced treatments -- such as drug-coated stents used to prop open coronary arteries -- will not be available.
* Even worse, officials have begun to encourage Britons to turn to "self care" in lieu of physician visits.

On a moral level, the doctors have a point: Taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize care for those who make poor choices and then expect others to pay for their mistakes. But that's exactly what universal health care does, and that's one of its primary flaws. It promises people that they'll be cared for no matter what they do to themselves. When the consequences of bad behavior are eliminated, there's a strong incentive to behave badly.

The threat to cut benefits to the old and the unhealthy in Britain is a clear confirmation that health care can never be free. Someone has to pay for it, and those people in Great Britain are so stretched that they can't meet every demand, says IBD.

Source: Editorial, "Health Freezes Over," Investor's Business Daily, January 29, 2008.

Couple this 'policy' with the information in Jonah Goldberg's recent column, and you'll see a disturbing trend. After a litany of bans on everything from pit bulls, trans fats, aluminum baseball bats, candy cigarettes and the circus; proposals to mandate government control over the temperature on your thermostats; and 'no running' signs on playgrounds, Goldberg writes:

"Much of this, as Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum has long argued, stems from the "totalitarian" temptation inherent to seeing health care as a sub-category of politics and policy. When government picks up the tab for health costs, it inevitably feels it is responsible for curtailing them through "prevention," which can often elide into compulsion. As Faith Fitzgerald, a professor at the University of California-Davis School of Medicine, put it in the New England Journal of Medicine: "Both healthcare providers and the commonweal now have a vested interest in certain forms of behavior, previously considered a person's private business, if the behavior impairs a person's 'health.' Certain failures of self-care have become, in a sense, crimes against society, because society has to pay for their consequences."

But there's another factor at work as well. We are seeing a return to the idea - first championed by social planners in the progressive era - that government can and should play the role of parent. For instance, Michael Gerson, once a speechwriter for President Bush, advocates a new "heroic conservatism" - an updating of his former boss' compassionate conservatism - that would unleash a new era of statist regulations. On the stump, Hillary Clinton refers to her book, "It Takes a Village," in which she argued that we all must surrender ourselves to the near-constant prodding, monitoring, cajoling and scolding of the "helping professions." Clinton argues that children are born in "crisis" and government must respond with all the tools in its arsenal from the word go. She advocates putting television sets in all public gathering places so citizens can be treated to an endless loop of good parenting tutorials.

Mike Huckabee, who represents compassionate conservatism on steroids, favors a nationwide ban on public smoking. Everywhere, from Barack Obama to John McCain, we are told that our politics must be about causes "larger than ourselves." What we used to think of as individual freedom is now being recast as greedy and selfish.

Perhaps we should remember these words from Alexis de Tocqueville:

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

More on SCHIP

For those following the on-going issue of expanding socialized medicine, in the form of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, I offer this column by Star Parker.

According to the article:

The reason for the launch of the SCHIP program in 1997 was affordability of health care. The point was to finance health care for children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid.

Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, almost half of our nation's children have government-paid health care either through Medicaid or SCHIP.

This new proposed expansion would entrench government health care more deeply into the nation's middle class.

Whereas SCHIP coverage has commonly covered families earning up to 200 percent above the poverty line, the new proposal lifts this ceiling to 300 percent. According to the Congressional Budget Office, up to 75 percent of families in this income range already have private coverage.

This is an informative article which also addresses the issue of less government regulation - rather than more.

Socialized Medicine, SCHIP and the role of the GOP-UPDATED

As I was doing some research on the proposal to expand the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) by taxing cigarettes and cigars, I came across and interesting perspective from Marc Kilmer of the Buckeye Institute.

(For some background information on this issue, I recommend local blogger Smoke If You Got 'Em, who has a post on the issue as well as the response to a letter he sent to Sen. Sherrod Brown. Toledo Talk also has a thread on the issue.)

Kilmer starts with an challenging question:

"If a politician ever suggested that taxes should be raised on the poor in order to pay for a product that people in the middle or upper class could already afford, it is not likely that this politician would have much of a future in office. So why, then, are so many members of the U.S. House and Senate rushing to support an effort to raise cigarette taxes (which hit the poor much harder than the rich) to pay for expanding federal health insurance program to include many middle class families?"

The reason, he explains, that SCHIP needs more money isn't just because of increasing medical costs - it's because coverage is being expanded to children in families that should be able to afford medical coverage (in some states a family of four can make up to $83,000 and still qualify) - and to ADULTS. In my logic, this doesn't make sense, as such expansions seem to be directly opposite to the original intent of covering children in families who made too much to qualify for medicare, but not enough to purchase their own insurance.

Kilmer says, "In fact, according to a recent study by the non-partisan Tax Foundation, almost 60 percent of American children would be eligible for government health care under a proposal being pushed by some Senators. Can anyone say with a straight face that this is really about “poor kids”?"

He further explains that the idea for such taxes is because "smokers impose such a heavy burden on government health care programs" so it's logical that they should pay more for medical care. But he rightly points out that children aren't supposed to be smoking, so how do you justify the use of such fund for them?

Kilmer hits the nail on the head with this statement:

"Why tax smokers more to pay for this program, then? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that people like “free” government programs. They like the concept of government funding children’s health care, but they do not want to pay for it themselves. So they pick out a group of folks engaged in activities they do not like – such as smoking – and decide to tax them."

But before you go off on the Democrats who are supporting this, remember that there are plenty on the right side of the aisle who believe this expansion of government is a good idea. In fact, it was a Republican Congress that, in 1997, gave us (what was at the time) the largest expansion of government health care since 1965, when Medicaid and Medicare were created.

The new federally funded program? "State Children's Health Insurance Program" (SCHIP).

At the time of passage, Congress estimated SCHIP would cost taxpayers $48 billion over ten years. Ten years later, the current figure being bandied about is $5.04 billion per year, which is not that much more than what's been spent, on average, each year previously. But the kicker is that the re-authorization is only for five years and some estimate that the shortfall from the states during that time frame could be $7 billion - yes, billion with a 'b'...

Ironic - when the Democrats controlled Congress in 1993, the Clinton administration failed to pass a national plan for socialized medicine. But Republicans, in 1997, implemented the administration's backup plan. According to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a "kids first" strategy which could be implemented through Medicaid was the backup option in case the larger plan failed. Many rejected 'HillaryCare' as socialized medicine...but those same people willingly took the first step toward the end goal by passing SCHIP.

So why did the GOP do this? Some speculate that they caved to an effective Democrat strategy which went something like this: Let's propose a new government program for children and fund it with cigarette taxes. Then, if Republicans oppose "KidCare" we'll charge that they don't care about children and that the only reason they oppose it is because they get large sums of money from the tobacco industry. This was a brilliant political strategy and one that is duplicated in numerous issues today. How many times do you hear, in a campaign, that it's 'for the children'?

At the time of passage, there was concern that the program would encourage families and employers to drop private health insurance and take this new government subsidy.

Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office in 1997/1998 were that half of the participants in the new program would be families who gave up private insurance. And they had good reason for such expectations....In 1987, Medicaid was expanded to pregnant women and their children with incomes 250% of the poverty level. Between 1988 and 1995, the number of kids covered by private insurance fell 8 percentage points while the percentage of kids covered by Medicaid climbed 7.6 points. Some studies showed that at least 3/4 of the shift was the result of parents dropping private coverage for themselves and their children.

Another concern at the time was that SCHIP would eventually become mandatory, regardless of family income or need. With the current proposed expansion to higher income levels, it's not yet mandatory, but it looks like it will certainly become the 'insurance of choice' for those eligible, after all - if the government is going to pay for something, why should I?

In 1994, the Republicans won control of Congress by promising to reduce government. But they didn't. Recently, under the guise of 'compassionate conservatism,' Republicans continued to expand the scope and reach of the federal government. One would think they would have learned a good lesson from previous experiences - that it is almost impossible to roll back entitlement programs once they're created, especially health-care entitlements. Yet instead of learning that lesson, in 1997 Republicans helped create the largest health-care entitlement in 30 years. And then, in 2003, they exceeded their previous record by passing what became the largest expansion of health-care entitlements when they approved the Medicare Prescription Drug program.

If they support the proposed expansion of eligibility for SCHIP, they may get credit for paving the road to socialized medicine.

UPDATE:
Fellow SOBers weigh in: Porkopolis has additional information on SCHIP and some good links, and One Oar in the Water shares thoughts about socialism and presidential candidate Ron Paul.