President Is Rebuffed on Program for Children

The Bush administration violated federal law last year when it restricted states’ ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families, and its new policy is therefore unenforceable, lawyers from the Government Accountability Office said Friday.The ruling strengthens the hand of at least 22 states, including New York and New Jersey, that already provide such coverage or want to do so. And it significantly reduces the chance that the new policy can be put into effect before President Bush leaves office in nine months.At issue is the future of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, financed jointly by the federal government and the states. Congress last year twice passed bills to expand the popular program, and Mr. Bush vetoed both.

STDs and Abstinence Only Education

A disturbing national study released this week has found that one in four girls and young women is infected with at least one of four common sexually transmitted diseases. The statistics are even more staggering for African American teenagers ages 14 to 19 - nearly half had a sexually transmitted disease, compared with 20 percent for white teenagers. The numbers are another indication that the White House's insistence on reserving millions of sex-education dollars for abstinence-only programs isn't working.
Certainly, abstinence is the best way to avoid STDs, but many teenagers are making the decision to have sex, and they need to know there are other ways to reduce the danger of disease or pregnancy. One researcher called the new study, presented at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference in Chicago, "alarming" and evidence that the infections are a major public health threat. The diseases monitored in the study were human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, genital herpes and trichomoniasis, a common parasite. The first national study of these diseases found that 15 percent of the infected girls had more than one STD. The findings clearly show that America can no longer afford the Bush administration's $1 billion abstinence program. Too much is at stake.

Lackluster Legacy On Health Care

President Bush didn't dally on the matter of health care during last night's State of the Union address, but he did flick at some tired themes: tax breaks for individual health insurance buyers (as opposed to employers); pooled insurance policies that help small businesses save money by spreading risk; and the expansion of Health Savings Accounts, which allow consumers to sock away pretax dollars to cover medical expenses. Yet the one issue that didn't merit mention--the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)--may likely be the linchpin of Bush's legacy on health care, both for small businesses and the Republican party. Twice last fall, Bush vetoed bills to double funding for SCHIP, a 10-year-old program that offers free or low-cost health insurance to children of low-income families. Last week, the House again failed to override the president's veto.

Veto Stands on Measure to Expand Health Plan

Democrats cited the nation’s economic problems as a reason to expand a popular health insurance program for children on Wednesday, but their effort failed as the House sustained President Bush’s veto of a bill to provide coverage to nearly four million uninsured children.
The vote for the bill was 260 to 152. Supporters were 15 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the measure over the president’s objections.

Science vs. politics gets down and dirty

Malicious, vindictive and mean-spirited. These are words that might surface in divorce court.
But they have been lobbed in the course of a different estrangement: the standoff between the Bush administration and the nation's scientific community.
The relationship, which has been troubled since the dawn of the Bush presidency, hit a new low last month when Richard Carmona, surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, lashed out at his former colleagues in testimony before a House committee.

Children’s Health Plan Focus of New Struggle

The Children’s Health Insurance Program has suddenly become a vehicle for an ideological struggle between President Bush and Congress over the future of the health care system.
But in the short term, members of both parties say, the broader outline of that struggle is likely to be reduced to a simple question: “Are you for or against children?” . . . . Representative John Shadegg, an influential conservative from Arizona, said, “This debate is the opening salvo in a battle over the future of health care in America.” . . . . Republicans say Mr. Bush’s opposition to the House and Senate bills stems from conviction and principle, not a political calculus. But, they say, he is not running for re-election and appears oblivious to the political risks for Republicans.

Paul Krugman: The Waiting Game

Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance ... to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it’s not as if those kids really need insurance — they can just go to emergency rooms, right?...

Critics Accuse Bush Administration of Trumping Science With Politics

Health experts said Wednesday they agreed with former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona's claim that the Bush administration has continually silenced medical and scientific opinions in favor of politics and religious dogma.

During his testimony before a Congressional panel on Tuesday, Carmona said that "top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations,"The New York Timesreported.

It doesn't surprise us to hear that the administration was ignoring science and attempting to silence scientists. That's how they have operated about stem cells for years. . . ."

Bush Again Vetoes Bill on Stem Cell Research

President Bush today issued his second veto of a measure lifting his restrictions on human embryonic stem cell experiments, a move that effectively pushed the contentious scientific and ethical debate surrounding the research into the 2008 presidential campaign.
At the same time, Mr. Bush issued an executive order intended to encourage scientists to pursue other forms of stem cell research that he does not deem unethical. But that research is already going on and the plan provides no new money.
Advocates for embryonic stem cell research called the new plan a ploy to distract from Mr. Bush’s opposition to the studies. “I think the president has issued a political fig leaf,” said Sean Tipton, spokesman for the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, an advocacy group. “He knows he’s on the wrong side of the American public.”