Mornin’, Christy.

Digg it.

Christy, It makes absolutely no sense to exclude immigrant children from the health care bill. Children will continue to go to school but this time without proper medication to prevent the spread of illnesses. Strep throat if not treated properly, is not only highly contagious but left untreated can lead to long term serious illnesses. It would be more cost effective to treat the illness now. I’ll make my phone call but I don’t expect much from my representative who is also a physician.

I once talked to a cardiac surgeon who can come from Pittsburgh to head up our open heart unit here. He said most of his work in Pittsburgh came from putting new valves into the hearts of teenagers from West Virginia whose sore throats had gone untreated because their parents had no coverage and could not afford either the doctor’s visit or the Rx. A couple of dollars of antibiotics would have saved them from getting rheumatic fever from the strep – would have saved their heart valves from getting infected and ruined – and would have saved the operations required to get them new valves and probably later on the same sort of little electric box to keep their hearts going. Not to put it on a dollars and cents basis – but covering kids saves major dollars later on. This has been proven time and again and it is just stupid and petty for people to take the position otherwise.

Thanks, SD, for the digg!

Tom Price can never be counted on to do the right thing.

Dugg

Billions and billions for slaughter and mass destruction, but now we’ve got to be *fiscally responsible* when it comes to the health of children!

Blech.

BTW, happy Abu Graib exposure day…

http://www.salon.com/news/abu_…..roduction/

There are some sporadic local clinic efforts to immunize immigrant children — but it’s not a constant and doesn’t cover nearly every child. From a public health standpoint, it really makes no sense to me. I get the fiscal argument — but it also seems like a very short-term based reality versus the longer-term costs we incur for not doing something like this. Imagine early childhood intervention services helping a young child overcome a developmental delay versus having to pay for that through the public school system for a lifetime? Or any number of other issues that can be more easily corrected or helped while the child is young versus becoming progressively worse as s/he gets older?

Can we, for once, think long-term value in this country? Or is that too much to ask?

Exactly so. I used to hear the fiscal arguments on early childhood intervention services, too, until a number of places started crunching numbers on savings in long-term incarceration costs, in long-term mental health issues, etc., etc.

It’s mind-boggling that the long-term discussion never seems to get past the initial discussion stages. If it were me, I’d be hammering that home…over and over again.

OT – Nomination Hearings today for Clinton, Chu, Orszag, Naboors, Donovan and Duncan. couldn’t pick just one, so inclulded links for all of them at oxdown (weekly list here)

Thanks, mucho!

It is clear that those who vote against the bill are not doing because they are fiscal conservatives. Yesterday during his babbling Bush mentioned that it was difficult to change the hearts of some people who are racist. In my belief it their lack of heart or values.

Can we, for once, think long-term value in this country? Or is that too much to ask?

Amen.

Wonderful photo.

iirc, the first time SCHIP came up last year legal immigrants were covered, but the second time that was changed so that they would not be. i hope they will be covered this time (actually i want undocumented kids to be covered too)

another amen from choir.

btw, it looks like things are in fairly good shape in the House — although calls there are much appreciated — but calls to the Senate are really crucial. Thanks so much for making them, gang.

If you could report back what you are hearing form elected officials, I’d really appreciate it!

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/wa…..HP-R-14186 Hillary’s hearing

Dugg! BTW, how can you tell who did the digg? Is it by username?

Have a good day pups! Once again Thank You Christy for all your hard work and for keeping us informed.

I just loved that picture. Glad you liked it, too…

If you scroll down a little, there are two tabs, one of which says “Who Dugg” – click on that and you see all the usernames.

I just want to know where her Mom got the tights!!

Me, too — don’t they look cozy and sturdy? The Peanut keeps putting holes in hers for school. I’d love to know where to find some nice sturdy ones like those! (Because they sure as hell don’t sell them around here!)

Dugg. Thanks for opening it.

Thanks Christy.

Anyway, my digg name is brindle, just so you know.
*
Sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake. Realizing now, while reading this post and comments, just why some people aren’t affected by the loss of childrens lives in the Middle East. If they can’t conceive of why immigrant children shouldn’t be covered by SCHIP, they can’t recognize any child but their own.

Yes, Kay Hagan! She’s a strong SCHIP supporter.

Bye-bye Liddy Dole

When my girls were little, my mom found some(now, this is 20 years ago) and I kept those going through both kids by frankly sewing up any holes that they had. They looked like urchins, but most of the time they wore pants anyway, so all it was was the warmth issue.

I’ve darned a couple of pairs up several times at this point –word to the wise: microfiber tights and 5 year olds don’t work well together — but we’ve reached critical mass for anything but pants with a couple of pairs now.

I’ve found the cabled tights work better. But now that spring stuff is in the stores, I’m afraid I’m going to have to find someplace to order them online because I can’t find spare pairs in stores at this point. Ugh.

Got it. Should I go back and change my username? Does it matter, do you think?

Honestly, I don’t think it really matters. :)

It is really remarkable how our country will literally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars keeping terminally ill octogenarians alive another 45 days and won’t fully fund SCHIP.

Logic clearly has not been our strong suit, has it? But you know, elderly folks have a vote and they vote in droves. Whereas kids? Not so much…

Goody. (Brindle is my pooch, btw. He digs your posts.)
Am watching the hearings. Lugar’s being nice. Actually, it’ll be interesting to see if there will be any hard hitting questions, since it seems that even the repugs are wanting to seem like they support whatever the PE wants. Maybe?

YGM :)

My Congressman Harry Mitchel was quite proud that he voted for SCHIP and there was a round of Ads with children thanking him for his vote with cheering and clapping. They were every happy commercials. THEN you had the scary Harry voted for the scary brown people to rob us blind by taking our Medicaid and suck up all the services.

Just remember when you call that we spend $4000 a second in Iraq….every second, every day……. HOW many children would that insure?

It’s been a little quiet at the Lake so far today. I hope people are making phone calls.
Hillary is taking a lot of notes, which reminds me, I’ve got to transcribe notes I took from a meeting a week ago.
Later, pups.
And, thank you CHS for keeping us focused on very important issues, especially the ones about children and justice.

When we will ever learn to focus on preventative care…..or consider longterm implications on any issue?

I haven’t heard about much of any opposition for Hillary Clinton, frankly. So this may not be too contentious a hearing today. Or for Susan Rice, for that matter. There have been some GOP comments here and there, but nothing that’s reached a substantive debate level that I’ve seen or heard. Anyone know differently on either? Let me know…

Yes, yes, yes. Insure NOT kill.

One of the differences I see is that Op-Ed by retired millitary chiefs calling for more support for early childhood ed, etc. When you have the US military calling for investment in children, I think it will make a difference.

I’m keeping the hearings on while I’m doing some boring computer work, so, if I hear anything, I’ll make a note of it.
Hug that Peanut for me, will you. I miss the little girl hugs.

I haven’t heard about much of any opposition for Hillary Clinton, frankly. So this may not be too contentious a hearing today. Or for Susan Rice, for that matter. There have been some GOP comments here and there, but nothing that’s reached a substantive debate level that I’ve seen or heard. Anyone know differently on either? Let me know…

only issue i’ve heard is the funding issue for bill clinton’s foundation.

i don’t expect any contentious foreign policy questions though because there aren’t any progressives in the senate to ask them. :(

My father was a Wildlife Biologist, worked for and retired from the US Forest Service. When you are managing wildlife and forests there has to be planning not just for the next year but 5, 10, 20, and yes 100 years.

When you plan for the people of America, it should include the 20, 50 and 100 year plans. How do you cut down crime and the prison population? You work on the 20 year plan for early education where the focus is to keep the kid in school….. 50 year plans work on the life and worklife to retirement of your population and the 100 year plan deals with the birth to grave quality of life.

Our European neighbors have gotten that with all the benefits that are provided to their citizens. I would like to see America to move to a Social Democracy where we create a strong solid foundation for everyone so that all can fly and do what they desire in life.

Same here — that’s the only questions I’ve heard about, and I hadn’t heard about any formalized effort to dig into that outside a few media and blog outlets.

sounds like she has fans on the committee. but i would have like to ask some questions (under oath) on kosovo, iraq, indonesia, imf and the global south, etc….

might switch over to one of the other hearings today. it’s hearingpalloza day.

I look forward to the day when the words “fold” or “cave” are never again used in the same sentence with “Democrats.”

This one pissed me off even more than FISA last year.

Thank god we got rid of our bonehead rep, Feeney, who used this bill to conjure up pictures of hordes of illegal brown people streaming into OUR country to get free health benefits at our expense. Jerk. And more importantly, loser.

Preventive health measures are in the moneyed class’s best interest. Immunizing (practically) everyone creates herd immunity effects that slow the rates of disease transmission.

We have an effective vaccine against measles (also covers mumps and rubella, a/k/a German Measles). Measles proper is an incredibly contagious virus, back in the days before the vaccine it would spread through schools like wildfire. The only kids who missed out were those who’d already had the disease. We still see occasional measles outbreaks, but now they’ve moved to our colleges and universities. Because the incidence is so much lower, we are not exposed to the virus annually and our immune system forgets that it needs to look for that thing. Colleges were lax in enforcing immunization requirements, and we had some measles epidemics as a result.

Why are preventive health measures in the monied class’s interest? Because these diseases that inconvenience a child can kill or maim an adult. Think polio. Think measles encephalitis. All of the bad sequelae are much more common in adults than children.

Think sanitation. There are no vaccines against cholera, there is one against typhoid. But you don’t want to be drinking water with S. typhii in it, even if you’re vaccinated. These are both diseases that were commonplace in the 19th century, essentially eradicated in the US, Canada and Europe. Why? Sanitation facilities. Keep clean water and dirty water separate. Treat dirty water before you dump it in the river/ocean/lake. Treat clean water before you put it in the pipes. None of it is cheap, but it does prevent disease.

It’s not just the morally correct thing to do, it’s in their own interest to do it.

Very late to the party, but I did call my Rep. (Baird–WA 03–Bush Dog) and left a message that he support SCHIP. When asked if he’s taken a position on this yet, his office assistant said he had not.

This rat bastard was at a town hall meeting here in town over the weekend. Mr. Votus asked him why he would not co-sponsor HR 676, healthcare for all, and he said that health care was an entitlement, not a right.

He sucks to the far corners of the earth, and I will support a good progressive to mop up the floor with him in 2010.

Thanks so much for the update — he’s going on my list of people to keep an eye on as of this note. Really appreciate it!