I'm in agreement and all . . .

but what is up with the mixed metaphors? I hope I'm missing some joke directed at Bush.

After all, Bush is right: we liberals really do think of things like SCHIP as building blocks on the road to universal healthcare, don't we? Actually, I think of piecemeal measures like this as impediments and barriers to universal healthcare, but ones that are worth the cost to the broader objective given the their benefits and the practical difficulty of getting the real goal.

Why are so many people so resentful of those who are less well off than they are?

hancock

Matt, like many others, is musing over the question of why George Bush is so hellbent on vetoing the SCHIP expansion of children's healthcare.

Maybe because there is no need for SCHIP in the first place? Harvard economist extraordinaire Greg Mankiw recently pointed to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study which showed "Since 1997, there has been a decreasing trend in the percentage of children who were uninsured". Looking at the graphs, one can see uninsured children have actually DECREASED. Therefore, there is no need for your socialized medicine solution to a non-existent problem which could actually reverse this trend.

You can find a link to the pdf at gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/09/healthcare-quiz.html

Kevin -- Your argument is premised on the fact that Bush has principles which I think is up for debate.

Plus, how does your theory account for his expansion of the Medicaid drug benefit against his party's wishes. Surely that is just as big a step towards "socialized medicine" as SCHIP?

Why are so many people so resentful of those who are less well off than they are?

This isn't rocket science. People either see the poor's existence as an implicit request for assistance, or they have absolutely no sense of empathy. In the first case, they often resent the poor for existing and making them feel bad. In the second case, the rich resent the explicit pressure to contribute to bettering the lives of the poor.

hancock,

Because they want to believe they are well off because of some inherent merit of their own. See the whole doctrine of predestination by John Calvin. It is the most pernicious form of salvation by grace.

The people who live their lives in accordance to the demands of authority live in fear that the moving hand will write: weighed, measured, and found wanting. The less well off are a painful reminder that they are well off because of who they exploit not because of merit.

Al, always read the comments, always read the comments if you are going to quote another blog!

Here is what you should have read:

"Partisan hackery at its worst, Dr. Mankiw. Shame. As bob put it, the correct question is what will happen in the two scenarios going forward - there are way too many possible causes for what happened in the recent past, including the first two commenters, but also the typical dishonest tactic of unsuccessfully opposing regulations at the time then claiming the market solved the problem looking back later."

Al, for you:

Borrowed from comments at mankiews blog:

(quote)

Anonymous said...
What's happened to uninsured kids is SCHIP & Medicaid expansions.

According to the US Census Bureau, the number of children with private health insurance (ie, health insurance their parents bought or got on the job) has DECLINED from 50.5 million in 1999 (70% of kids) to 47.9 million in 2006 (64.6% of kids).

In the meantime, the number of kids on public programs has increased from 16.7 million to about 22 million. So, for couple of years the number of uninsured kids declined in spite of more kids losing private insurance, because the public programs were catching them as they fell.

And you may ask, Dr. Mankiw, what happened in 2005 and 2006, the two years when the number of kids on public insurance DIDN'T increase (largely because SCHIP started to run out of money)

Well, the number of uninsured kids went up. By a MILLION kids.

This ain't rocket science. As the healthcare system collapsed, we saved kids using SCHIP (created in 1997). When we stopped doing that, the kids fell off just like the adults have been doing for the past 10 years. Just look at pages 63-65 of this year's PDF census report on the uninsured.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf

To continue my comment above, this is, quite obviously, why it is vitally important to continue and strengthen the SCHIP program to ensure it's catching all of the children who continue to become uninsured as our health care system collapses.

Because if we don't, the number of uninsured kids will skyrocket, just as the number of uninsured adults has.

(end quote)

So, shorter version for Al--SCHIP is why there are fewer uninsured children. A program that works, GASP, unthinkable!!

Some good pics of yesterdays rally in KC can be found here.

Why are so many people so resentful of those who are less well off than they are?

They are a reminder of where you could easily fall to. Somewhere -- I think it was a novel by Nicolas Freeling -- the bourgeois were described as the people who hate the rich and fear the poor.

Typical Al - denounce a program as unnecessary because it's successful. How do you people manage to even tie your shoes with the inability to reason like you consistently exhibit? (Maybe you don't - we know you by your velcro tennies...)

Why are so many people so resentful of those who are less well off than they are?

Because the less well off are a constant reminder to the more well off that when they die, they are going to hell.

I think Kevin's right, and I think it's of a piece with Bush's disastrous attempt to push through privatization of Social Security.

Moreover, it's of a piece with his management history. He's been successful pretty much only when OTHER people have made the decisions, and he's been the front-office appearance (e.g., Texas Rangers, Texas governorship). He's been a disaster when HE has insisted on actually setting the course (e.g., Harken Energy, Arbusto Oil).

I think that, for some reason, Bush decided to stamp his tiny feet and not let himself be handled (and/or maybe the handlers slipped up and let him see what was really going on) on this issue. And lo and behold, as with SS, it's a disaster.

How did we end up with this overgrown child having so much nominal authority? If this isn't a national wake-up call, I don't know whether we're capable of ever waking up...

Many people don't know this, but Ronald Reagan used to have a talk radio program in the 1960's, before he became Governor of California. He also allegedly raped actress Selena Walters and told dirty jokes in Las Vegas, too, but those are facts for other blog threads...

Anyway, Reagan was the precursor of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, et al. and one of his favorite topics to bloviate on was "socialized medicine" - he saw it as allowing Communism to get a foothold in the United States, despite the fact he was a Democrat until 1962 and the head of a union (Screen Actors Guild) to boot. So, the provenance of the right-wing's hatred of universal healthcare was the ole Gipper himself.

And now you know - the rest of the story.....

What cmdicely said. Or maybe "distractions" rather than "impediments"... but, distractions that are still worth taking care of.

If there's a crappy bus system that badly needs redesign, but some of the buses are falling apart right now, they still need to be fixed. If some idiots denounce the bus-fixing because they think it's my "first step toward imposing a really good bus system, because then people will think they can rely on buses instead of cars" (which they think is bad, because they're idiots or have financial interest in cars)... they're right about what I really want in the end, but they're dead wrong about my motives in the current matter. Or they just want to confuse others.

Nice post, KD, very liberally fair-minded, seeing all sides. Bush's fear of socialized medicine makes his John Birch ideology starkly obvious, doesn't it? It is hard to credit because the ideology is so looney-tunes, but there it is for all to see.

Slippery slopes are treacherous. I came across this example in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. A Conservative hack columnist is outraged by the lawless behavior of the Critical Mass bike riders. They run red lights! What evil will follow?

"If Critical Mass riders just wanted to celebrate bikes, they could refrain from serial law-breaking and ride at a time that doesn't provoke rush-hour drivers. But that won't do. Their antics are more about power -- "I'll make you wait while I ride by" -- and self-dramatization than making the world a better place.

"Minneapolis authorities eventually will discover what parents learn when they allow petulant children to break the rules "just to keep the peace." You don't get peace. You just open the door to bigger trouble"

Today they run red lights. Tomorrow they vote for socialized medicine. Then they come for our guns...

Yes, I agree with the posters above who responded to my comment, which was really more of an ironical comment posed as a question, I guess.

I would add that many of the resentful people I mentioned rationalize their beliefs by whining that "God helps those who help themselves," a saying they claim comes directly from on high.

In fact, it's an old proverb popularized by Ben Franklin.

But then I suppose these are the same people who, according to polls, believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

hancock

The main reason THIS liberal is opposed to the ban on late-term IDX abortions is because it is a medically necessary treatment that should be an option for any woman who finds herself needing it. The fact that the ban would only affect an incredibly small number of people does not work into the equation in my head because those people, few as they may be, REALLY need this procedure. It's not something that is done just because the woman wants it done.

Today they run red lights. Tomorrow they vote for socialized medicine. Then they come for our guns...

You forgot the part about how we seduce away their womenfolk and turn their sons gay....

Big business, for example, should be rapturous at the idea of getting rid of its healthcare obligations, but even today, with healthcare costs skyrocketing and no end in sight, business groups are endorsing national healthcare only tentatively and in small numbers. (In 1994 they caved in to conservative pressure and didn't support it at all.) Why? Because even though national healthcare would help their earnings and remove a huge monkey from their backs, they genuinely and truly loathe socialized medicine. It's a step on the road to weakness and decay.

Yes, why in the world shouldn't everyone be eager to dump all their responsibilities and needs on the State?

It seems incredible to many liberals that some people might think this kind of attitude isn't a good thing for a nation in the long run. Maybe many businesses were founded and grown by people who have seen the role of individuality and responsibility in creating wealth and success.

This gap in worldview and perception does not seem to be one that is easily crossed.

By the way, anybody trying to sell this as being about the poor are lying. If it were just about the poor, they wouldn't be trying like hell to drag the middle and upper middle class into these schemes.

It's about power, and always has been. And there just aren't enough poor people in America for their dependency on the State to generate the kind of political power the Left is looking for.

Big business, for example, should be rapturous at the idea of getting rid of its healthcare obligations

I think you can't say "big business" without some qualifiers. Long-established business such as GM or IBM would love to offload their long-term healthcare obligations. Google, Cisco, and other similar newer business probably don't have significant long-term obligations, and possibly believe that they would face a tax hike of some sort to pay for other companies long-term healthcare obligations.

Small businesses, on the other hand, should be wild about it across the board.

It seems if conservatives are so convinced that "socialized medicine" is such a disaster, why not let SCHIP pass, and then in a few years when newscameras show malnourished, sick children dying in the streets, holding out their shivering hands, begging "I just need some medicine, mister, some medicine..." we'll all realize that Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek were right, rescind the terrible policy and never go there again. That'll show us!

On the other hand, what Bush's veto reveals is that Republicans know that once people see that government-guaranteed health care does not bring civilization to a screeching halt, but in fact raises standards of living and makes people's lives better, they'll want more of it. It scares them to death.

Kevin,

I think your analogy is a pretty poor one. There is, in fact, a very important principle at play that goes beyond the camel nose. Namely, that the government shouldn't come between a patient and their doctor. If a doctor surmises that there is too much risk to carry a baby to term and that the best option to ensure the health of the mother is the IDX procedure then that is between the doctor and the mother. Conservative's dogmatic religious values should not enter into that or any other decision between a doctor and a patient. Period.

With S-CHIP it is purely about the camel nose. There is no other principle at play here.

I thought the S-chip had something to do with blocking stupid programs from your TV, so your kids wouldn't be exposed to O'Reilly.

I'm with danno. I oppose the ban on late-term IDX abortions because it takes what is often the safest method to perform a medically necessary procedure off the table because some folks who know squat about medicine think it's "icky".

There are a number of possible reasons:
1) He is convinced his position is "good."
2) He promised a loyalist to veto it.
3) He wants to rehabilitate his image with right wing conservatives as fiscally conservative. (How do his flunkies manage to repeatedly claim that Bush is fiscally responsbile without bursting out laughing or being struck by lighting?)

As for manufacturers, I think you understate a little the support of industry for universal healthcare. They have been tepid, perhaps not wanting to anger the GOP which until relatively recenlty controlled all branches of government.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?pid=1319
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34899-2004Mar5?language=printer

jonas is exactly right, as Rachel Maddow argued on Tweety's show. This is a government program that works, jsut like Medicare and Social Security. And any government program that works must be resisted and stamped out (drowned in the bathtub).

Government programs cannot be demonstrated to be beneficial to the common good, no matter what their intent or effects.

All very interesting. But where's our Friday cat photos?

it's actually a whole lot more obvious that that: bush does not want to give the democrats any "successes" in passing popular bills. he's happy to do his part to magnify the perception that democrats cannot get anything done - even if due to the malicious devices of their counterparty.

This is a government program that works, jsut like Medicare and Social Security. And any government program that works must be resisted and stamped out (drowned in the bathtub).

Yes, it's been working fairly well. This isn't about SCHIP as a program. The funding for the program as it stood was actually due for an increase anyway. It's about Democrats trying to haul the middle class into it as a stalking horse for universal government health care. You got that yet?

Cats! Cats! Cats!

Though I generally agree with Kevin has said, I do have one quibble. The partial birth abortion bans are *only* explained by the desire of ban advocates to chip away at the practice of abortion generally. Taken alone, such laws are thoroughly and utterly irrational. Posner's dissent in Hope Clinic v. Ryan and Christensen v. Doyle lay out the case better than I think anyone on the Supreme Court has been able to do. SCHIP, by contrast, is sensible social policy even if one agrees never to attempt to enact a socialized health care system.

President W. Bush is serving poor children schip on toast.

Slave Kevin, our worshippers require our appearance. Obey their wishes.

Didn't Bill Kristol send out a memo, back in the day, urging Republicans to fight national healthcare for fear that, once implemented, it could prove successful, giving the lie to their "government is the problem" mantra?

Bush has been the King of Spenders who never saw a spending bill he didn't like. The outrage of fiscally responsible conservatives and the incipient death of the Republican party has gotten through his thick skull.

What is extraordinary is that it took so long, which shows how isolated Bush is behind his loyalists and sycophants.

. . . that really is the reason.

Perhaps; however.

A lot's written nowadays about GWB's concern for his "legacy" and his "place in history." I'm quite skeptical about this. GWB isn't delusional enough to think his emergence as the new Harry Truman will take place in his lifetime. Nor are there many signs that he cares much for popular opinion, unless he can use it to his advantage.

But he cares a lot about how he's treated by the people around him. And his father, once out of the White House, was treated very badly by some in their social circles for the sins of raising taxes and then losing the presidency to a Democrat who raised them even higher.

GWB may very well think socialized medicine is evil. He also may realize it's inevitable. Whatever the case, now that he's beyond the need for political compromise, he's not about to do anything that might lead to humiliation at the country club sixteen months from now.

Completely off topic, but it is soooo nice to read you in Google Reader. So nice that I went ahead and clicked through to the actual Monthly page to leave this comment. Thanks again for the link to the non-truncated feed.

I don't know when the socialized medicine scare first materialized, but my initial encounter with it was as a young soldier returning by train from furlough to my base in 1948. My commander-in-chief, Harry S. Truman, had proposed a national health care program some months before only to be denounced by, among others, the AMA and their congressional lap-dogs. While relaxing in the club car I was engaged in conversation by a medical doctor who claimed to have been a battlefield surgeon a few years earlier during WWll. The conversation eventually settled on Truman's controversial proposal, which I endorsed and defended, arguing as best an 18-year-old could be expected to do. The doctor was visibly not impressed with my argument. We soon broke off our little talk.

A few weeks later while on duty I was informed by my company commander that I was not to be allowed access to the company orderly room, nor was I to be placed on guard duty; I was being "investigated." The only thing I was apparently entrusted with was pots and pans while on KP, because I drew an inordinate number of assignments to the kitchen. A few weeks later I was shipped out to Germany, an unexpected but not unpleasant tour of duty. There the matter was never brought up, nor was there any indication of further interest in my opinions then or in the ensuing years of my service.

At some point during the train trip the doctor and I had exchanged names and he subsequently reported me and our conversation to some investigative, or otherwise interested, entity. Imagine that: I was investigated for agreeing with the President of The United States! How times have changed.

SCHIP....Matt, like many others, is musing over the question of why George Bush is so hellbent on vetoing the SCHIP expansion of children's healthcare.

Look, it's symbolic. If the president can't tell a bunch of little kids they can't get health care so the Democrats aren't able to take us a little step away from privatization, then what in the hell does he stand for?

The reason Bush is (and will continue) to veto legislation is because he can....its about power...He's daring the Democrats to over ride the veto.

….why in the world shouldn't everyone be eager to dump all their responsibilities and needs on the State?…….there just aren't enough poor people in America ... harry at 2:02 PM

…Nearly 8 in 10 said they thought it was more important to provide universal access to health insurance than to extend the tax cuts of recent years; 18 percent said the tax cuts were more important….

It should be the responsibility of the government to provide universal access to health care. That is what societies are supposed to do. Government is the way societies operate collectively.

....It's about Democrats trying to haul the middle class into it as a stalking horse for universal government health care...harry at 2:26 PM

Mike, if I took a poll that asked people "would you like to have everything you wanted without having to pay for it," what do you think the result would be?

Of course people like the idea of free health care. They'd like the idea of free cars, free houses, and free cookies. Maturity is realizing there's no such thing as something for nothing, that the strings that would inevitably be attached to "free" care would eventually turn to cables, and that a forced monopoly is no better when run by the government than by anyone else.

Have you noticed that British health care has long ago stopped being the Great Example held up to Americans on this issue?

Health care isn't free, Harry. You pay for it with taxes which would be cheaper in cost than our current HMO based system.

The Texas Rangers never made the playoffs when Bush was their Potemkin President !

Have you noticed that British health care has long ago stopped being the Great Example held up to Americans on this issue?

No.

In fact, I seem to recall a recent film largely premised on that very idea...

I somewhat disagree: Bush opposed CHIP increases when he was governor, when socialized healthcare was much less of an issue, particularly in Texas. Keep in mind that this is a guy who campaigned for governor on the issue of *reducing* AFDC payments, even though they had risen in Texas for almost 10 years.

The motivation seemed very clear in Texas: his focus on was reducing taxes, especially for the wealthy. When it come down as a choice between tax cuts for the wealthy or insuring impoverished kids, Bush's choice was clear.

This is Bush's mandate as governor and president: reduce taxes, "compassionate conservatism" be damned. While he's willing to plunge the country into debt for the war, he clearly regards the war as turning a corner and reducing those expenditures. S-CHIP would be an ongoing expense.

Remember when the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man tried to destroy Manhattan at the end scene of Ghostbusters? It's kind of like that.

Have you noticed that British health care has long ago stopped being the Great Example held up to Americans on this issue?

Have you noticed that nobody, but nobody, holds up our health care system as a Great Example?

Have you noticed that British health care has long ago stopped being the Great Example held up to Americans on this issue?

I don't remember it ever being held up as "the Great Example"; I remember it being held up (along with the French, German, Canadian, and other systems), as it still is (and the others still are), as one example (of many) of a system that, while far from perfect, is overall superior to ours in breadth of coverage and many other quality measures, while being cheaper both as a share of GDP and per capita.

From Schmitz Blitz: schmitzblitz.wordpress.com

With regard to all of this SCHIP business, the Economist tries to account for the rationale behind the President’s veto, noting:

"Neither fiscal restraint nor the veto pen has characterized President George Bush’s time in the White House. America continues to run a deficit, and Mr. Bush has vetoed only three bills in his whole tenure. But now that he has a Democratic Congress to battle with, the president is promising to be tougher.

…

Mr. Greenstein [of the Centre on Budge and Policy Priorities] speculates that the president is really trying to force Congress to attach the health care tax-incentive proposal he unveiled in January. An aversion ot government-run health-care programmes and new taxes—a tobacco-tax increase would fund the SCHIP expansion—may also be driving Mr. Bush’s opposition. Or he may simply be trying to reestablish his credentials as a fiscal conservative."

In adding to Bush’s reasons behind the veto, I argue that moral reasoning also played a role. I base my analysis off of the book Moral Politics by Berkeley Linguistics Professor George Lakoff. Lakoff argues that the liberal/conservative split over key issues is based on more than just partisan politics—he argues that these differences “arise from radically different conceptions of morality and ideal family life—meaning that family and morality are at the heart of American politics.�

Lakoff offers two structural models for the ideal family—the Strict Father model and the Nurturant Parent model. ‘Conservatives’ tend to prefer the former, ‘liberals’ the latter. From these differing conceptions of the ideal family, arise different moral systems for discerning what is good.

Lakoff characterizes the Strict Father model as:

"A traditional nuclear family, with the father having primary responsibility for supporting and protecting the family as well as the authority to set overall family policy. He teaches children right from wrong by setting strict rules for their behavior and enforcing them through punishment…He also gains their cooperation by showing love and appreciation when they do follow the rules. But children must never be coddled, lest they become spoiled; a spoiled child will be dependent for life and will not learn proper morals."

If you accept Lakoff’s thesis, then President Bush’s veto of SCHIP makes perfect sense, assuming he adheres to the Conservative/Strict Father moral worldview (a pretty safe assumption I’d say, noting the President’s deep devotion to a conservative strain of Christianity, which espouse traditional family values).

The President would see SCHIP as undermining the ‘traditional’ family that his whole moral system is based upon. He would see SCHIP as transferring the responsibility of providing for the family from the father to the government. This diminution of the father’s authority strikes the heart of the Strict Father moral worldview. If this primary tenet is struck, then the whole moral conception loosens and waivers. In vetoing SCHIP, the President may believe that he is maintaining the very foundation his moral system—the authoritarian patriarchal father figure.

*

Thanks for the reference to one of my all-atime favorite New Yorker cartoons.

I mean that Stay-Puft's raison d'etre (to destroy Manhattan and the Ghostbusters) is the same as Bush's, not that Bush thinks he's fighting Stay-Puft.

Any quibbling over whether denying children healthcare is a good means towards that end is beside the point.

You've got to admit, as a theory it has the advantage of explaining those kooky 9/11 coincidences.

Elizabeth Schmitz: "If you accept Lakoff’s thesis, then President Bush’s veto of SCHIP makes perfect sense, assuming he adheres to the Conservative/Strict Father moral worldview (a pretty safe assumption I’d say, noting the President’s deep devotion to a conservative strain of Christianity, which espouse traditional family values)"

Interesting hypothesis, and here is some interesting visual support for it on a BAGnewsNotes thread.

But it seems to me that some people who hold traditional family values are Nurturant Parents and some are Strict Father. I believe it would be more precise to say that George Bush is likely to reason using a Conservative/Strict Father model because he believes in "... a conservative strain of Christianty that espouses a Conservative/Strict Father family model."

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has done fascinating empirical work on the moral emotions (disgust, awe.)
Based on his work, he proposes five core values: Individualism, Care for the Weak, In-group loyalty, Hierarchy/Obedience and Purity/Divinity. Liberals recognize only the first two. Conservatives endorse all five, though the first two are less important to them than to liberals. However, Liberals don't even see the last three as moral values.

In terms of Lakoff's thesis, I speculate, Liberal/Nurturant Parents would be more likely to emphasize values of individualism and Care for the weak. So liberals will support SCHIP because they want to help the weak. The Conservative/Strict Fathers, however, will reason using all five values. So a lot of conservatives support SCHIP--perhaps because they reason using Care for the Weak value and they don't view the children affected as Out-group members.

I would guess that Bush vetoed it because his brand of Conservative/Strict Father finds "socialism" disgusting (Purity/Divinity) and in his gut, believes that his In-group would be exploited if it passed ( In-group loyalty at work), and he doesn't really care if people low on the totem pole suffer (Hierarchy).

Lee Iacocca was right -- "There's something wrong philosophically with how Bush's brain works."

He should start a new motto -- No Child Left Health Insurance. I guess 43 Governors must favor "socialized medicine" because they signed a petition supporting SCHIP. A rational President might actually see this as evidence the program is working well. And Bush's sudden preoccupation with controlling spending is bullshit. He certainly showed no restraint when his party controlled the Congress. But now when it is program to extend health insurance for children he suddenly has found his inner deficit hawk. What a dipshit.

Maybe Bush doesn't like SCHIP because it is NOT a big giveaway to the corporate interests he favors. The Medicare prescription drug benefit that he passed was a fat wet kiss for Big Pharma.

This loser cannot get out of office fast enough. His presidency is a national embarrassment.

It's not about the unversal health care, it's about Phillip Morris and tobacco's except to the bill.

That is all.

Bush doesn't care that Americans are paying 3 dollars a gallon for gasoline - paying more for higher energy cost AND the same ugly Mr. Bush certainly didn't care that Richard S. Foster, the government's chief analyst of Medicare costs was threatened with being firing if he disclosed too much information about the cost of Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug plan, the same Bushie that is letting taxpayers pick up the entire cost of the superfund program.

It is NOT about being a conservative but about loyality to big time GOP contributors.

You don't have to go to Harvard to know why Bush is using his veto pen for Phillip Morris USA. All the cigarette smoke in world couldn't cover that obvious a reason for Bush's veto. Please, let's not play stupid here.

Wait a minute, can't we oppose partial-birth abortion bans because they inject government into a patient-doctor relationship unnecessarily? Because the few times they do happen, they are undertaken in extremely terrible circumstances? I don't think this argument is undertaken by pro-lifers with a slippery slope in mind, it's more because their argument (which lies heavily on individual emotional reaction to the abortion procedure) is it's most persuasive in regard to that one procedure.
But, hell, the SCHIP debate itself shows us that we shouldn't be seeking common ground on this issue. Compromising with Republicans, even very prominent ones, doesn't work. No matter how many concessions you make and bipartisan changes you make, you still get vetoed.

Wait a minute, can't we oppose partial-birth abortion bans because they inject government into a patient-doctor relationship unnecessarily?

Well, can't we oppose government mandated/run health care for the same reason? You might say that it is necessary in some cases, and I reply "Where do we draw a line and how often does the line move, and why?"

Upthread jonas sorta asked: hey,why not pass it and if it doesn't work rescind it? then asserted that universal government health care is going to be the awesomest thing ever!!! and Bush knows this and it scares him. That's not analytical thinking.

Look, he's going to be out of office in a year and change, but he is most likely making this stand on principle. Some of that I strenuously disagree with but one part of it makes crystal clear sense: If you allow any government power over your decisions, they will never, ever return it you. No matter how badly they bollocks it up, no matter how obvious their incompetence you have lost some freedom and thrown away choice. And you'll never see them again.

As Kevin said, he sees spinach, and I'll give him a half-hearted hat tip on this.

Bush probably feels he is helping Republicans frame the healthcare debate for '08.

Jesus would fund SCHIP.