CAGW Porker of the Month: Sens. Baucus and Smith

CAGW* | August 2, 2007

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) this month named Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and member Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) Porkers of the Month for leading the effort to expand, instead of reform, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Created in 1997 to help states provide health insurance coverage to children in low-income families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, SCHIP originally provided for families with incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. However, the Senate Finance Committee, led by Chairman Baucus, approved a $35 billion expansion of the program, making families earning as much as $61,950 eligible for coverage. To pay for the increased spending, Sen. Smith proposed, and the committee adopted, a 156 percent increase in the cigarette excise tax (61 cents per pack). Ironically, excise taxes fall heaviest on the working poor - exactly those whom SCHIP is supposed to help. For pushing a program that is the first step in creating government-controlled universal healthcare, CAGW names Sens. Max Baucus and Gordon Smith its July 2007 Porkers of the Month. Read more about the Porkers of the Month.

Contributor's website: http://cagw.org

Similar posts:

*Content posted by a user may not be completely written by that user. Content from another source is cited in either block quotes, with quotes or with a link to the original material. Content from other sites is posted for commentary and news purposes under fair use. Each user is responsible for their own postings and a particular posting should not be construed as being endorsed by this site or it's owner.