Health care should not be free for Children or Adults

Interesting points all.... Lets begin with your contention that children should not qualify for S-Chip unless their parents are incapable of working.(thats Medicaid, not SChip) The result of that position of course is children will not receive adequate health care. Doctor's visits, immunity shots, yearly checkups etc, would be avoided by the parents, because they were not in a position to pay for them, whether self imposed or not. We are in complete agreement that there are lazy people in the world who shirk their duties and are irresponsible and make horrifically stupid decisions in life. I would venture to guess that each of us can think of such examples in our own families. However, your position is punitive towards the children of these 'lazy', 'irresponsible' people, and propagates a cycle of bad health. I argue that punishing the children of irresponsible parents with bad health, is not a good policy. If this were an argument about welfare or workman's compensation, I would acquiesce to your points of not wanting to reward laziness, however, this is an argument about S-Chip which provides health care for the children of parents who make too much money to enroll in Medicaid. In most states S-Chip only applies to families that make up to $36,200 per year. In California, there are certain areas where that number can reach $63,000 per year. Having lived in California, I understand how incredibly expensive living expenses are as do you, which explains the disparity. Simple math shows how impossible funding health care for 2 children would be for a family making $63,000 per year and paying over $20,000 in rent alone. After taxes, food, utilities, car expenses and clothing, how could they afford the fees it takes to take a child to the doctor? Most parents faced with the option of feeding the family one month or having the child immunized from Small Pox is forced to feed the family, leaving the child open to disease and death. S-Chip confronts that reality and attempts to correct it. You said "I can tell you this issue is not as simple as give them free health care and they will be okay. You are addressing years of a poverty mindset and even if they were capable of working a job, they most likely would not." On this we are in agreement, however S-Chip was not created to address the poverty mindset and lack of education that permeates urban areas of the country. It was created to provide health care for children who's parents would not provide to them otherwise, in the hopes of providing a better, more healthy life for those children. I understand your unwillingness to pay for the care of the children of the under performing, however I implore you to consider the results of not doing so. We both work very hard for our money, believe me, I don't enjoy paying the 33% tax that I shell out every year, however there are some things, like SChip which are worthwhile simply because they address the needs of the innocent. You said "Maybe we ought to free up people to pay for health care by cutting their taxes" I find this an interesting position after you spent the paragraph prior explaining how irresponsible and unreliable the recipients of SChip are? You and I both know that if you reduced the taxes paid by S-Chip recipients, the resulting cash would not go towards health care for their children, so this point is not solid. You said "This statement in of itself demonstrates an utter detachment from reality. 25% of the country pays the majority of the taxes" My statement was "In health care facilities where Medicaid and welfare cases are the norm, you consistently find a lower standard of customer service and increased wait times." Perhaps you miss read the statement, which was not about tax rates or a claim that Medicaid is paid for by the recipients, but in fact addressed your earlier point of the health care system becoming like the DMV. Regarding your experiences with VA hospitals, I am glad you have had good experiences, I provide veterans services for my local Elks Lodge and can assure you that the VA hospitals in upstate New York are not the places of wonder and attentiveness that they apparently are in Oregon, California and Colorado. Onto NGO's: I will let your initial mention of faith based initiative slip away.... While I applaud the efforts of NGOs and humanitarian non for profits, it is ludicrous to contend that they are in a position to handle a program like SChip, or that they could possibly fund services for a majority of the needy as you prescribe. The Government DOES cost more to facilitate these social programs, because the Government is not supported by volunteers. The belief that it is possible to find enough volunteer workers to run programs to support the children of the poor is unbelievably simple. People need to be paid for their efforts. NGO's could not possibly support the infrastructure that is required to support the needy and is DEFINITELY not regulated enough to be trusted with huge checks every month. Who would provide oversight as to how the money was being spent and whether it was being spent correctly and on the right people? The increase in regulatory workers to oversee proper expenditures for thousands of private NGO's would be incredibly huge. Thousands more Government accountants would be required in order to track the money, and it would quickly be reduced to a mess worse than our current, admittedly bulky and bureaucratic system. We are in agreement that the Government should be streamlined, but not at all that NGO's could possibly do any better. Finally your contention that the parents of many potential SChip recipients are too lazy to fill out the paperwork is disingenuous and ignors the fact that a high percentage of the poor wave the services out of a sense of pride, not out of sheer laziness. Onto round Three.