Posted by
KsReaganite on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 5:37:36 PM
In the richest country of the world, there is no excuse for six million children not having access to adequate healthcare. Conservatives are often blamed for this due to their principled resistance to overt government interference in the economy. But lets look at the other side of the coin. Liberals are responsible for a large part for this state of affairs. Firstly, it is these liberal Democrats who have for decades thwarted attempts to allow cross-state purchase of health insurance that could have made good private insurance available to poor people in otherwise expensive markets like New York and Los Angeles. Secondly, in most states and perhaps even in Congress, Democrats would have been able to get guaranteed national coverage for uninsured Americans passed had they mollified the fears of a large majority of Americans that such coverage would not be used to invalidate the Hyde Amendment through the backdoor. Thirdly, the education labor rackets (NEA and AFT), a core Democratic constituency, have done everything possible to make sure that our public schools produce teenagers full of self esteem and utterly lacking in the old fashioned skills to go to medical and nursing schools.
But then why should Democrats really care? Their constituencies are the ultra rich like the Kerrys and Kennedys and those at the other end of the spectrum who benefit from Medicaid. As for children, given the Democrats’ steadfast defense of patently anti-child policies with regards to pornography, child predators, divorce and custody law, protection of the unborn, and quality of education, I have never bought the line that they were the kid-friendly party. There are plenty of Democrats who are pro-children (Tipper Gore and the late Governor Casey of PA come to mind), but as a party, the party of Clinton and Kennedy is not.