Compassionate conservatism strikes again
A children’s health program is its latest target
By Max J. Castro Read Spanish Version
Looking at George W. Bush’s track record over the last six years, it is clear that it has been long on conservatism and infinitesimally short on compassion. Bush’s domestic policy, from taxes to spending priorities, amounts to a preferential option for the very rich.
The latest example of Bush’s compassionate conservatism is his threat to veto a bill that would provide health insurance to millions of low income children. In the words of the Washington Post, in issuing the veto threat Bush “rejected entreaties by his Republican allies that he compromise with Democrats on legislation to renew a popular program that provides health coverage to poor children.”
Among those who unsuccessfully pleaded with Bush were Senators Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), two top Republicans in the Senate. Grassley is a moderate and Hatch is a staunch conservative. The Senate bill Bush is threatening to veto is a bipartisan comprise that would provide a lower level of funding than similar legislation before the House of Representatives.
The proposed expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which currently insures about 6.6 million children, would allow coverage for an additional 3.3 to 4.1 million children out of an estimated 9 million that are eligible but not enrolled in the program because of lack of funds and other reasons.
Pundits wonder why Bush would want to eschew a bipartisan comprise when the Democrats control Congress, threaten a popular program at a time when his popularity is at an all-time low, and alienate key Republican senators he needs to beat back the growing rebellion among the GOP over the Iraq war?
Some in Washington are “scratching their heads” about the president’s action, especially because in 2004, when he was running for reelection, Bush promised to lead an "aggressive effort" to enroll millions of poor children eligible for government-subsidized health insurance but not receiving it.
The President himself cited “philosophical grounds” for rejecting the Senate compromise, specifically the fact that the expansion would enlarge the role of government in health care and reduce that of the private sector. Bush said that he wanted to send the message to allies in Congress that “the expansion of government in lieu of making the necessary changes to encourage a consumer-based system is not acceptable."
What is going on here beyond the false campaign promises and the Orwellian slogans –“healthy forests” (more logging), “clear skies” (more air pollution), and “compassionate conservatism” (tax breaks for the rich, fewer services for the middle class and the poor) — that have characterized this administration?
Bush’s attack on children’s health insurance, like his disastrously failed offensive against social security, reflects the depth of the President’s ideological commitment to creating a society seamlessly designed for the maximization of private profit and his fierce opposition to anything that might stand in the way of such a conception, including any and all components of the social safety net, even those that protect children and the elderly.
Bush and his ideological brethren, who represent an important sector in the Republican Party, ranging from the Heritage Foundation to his own brother Jeb, are now waging a more defensive battle than in the recent past. Destroying social security is no longer feasible (although undermining Medicare is a goal the administration continues to pursue actively). At present, the main battle is to prevent new “entitlements,” for Republican rightists one of the dirtiest words in the policy jargon.
The logic is simple. If the government covers more and more children to the point that all children have health insurance, people will come to believe that health care for children is an “entitlement,” in effect a right guaranteed in the last instance by the government. How long, the reactionary Republicans ask, before the logic of entitlement is extended to the entire population and the American people, like the people of Canada, France, Britain, Germany, and the rest of the world, come to believe that health care is a right?
This is a nightmare scenario for a key sector of the Republican Party and some of the people who back the GOP to the tune of millions of dollars. Any extension of health care based on need rather than greed is a threat to the “philosophy” of Bush and his ideological soul mates, not to mention the mercenary medicine monster (MMM). What would happen if we cut out of the health care system all those intermediaries who deliver no health services but rake in billions of dollars rationing care based on principles of profit maximization rather than medical necessity? These parasitical middle-men would lose a lot of money, as would politicians, especially Republicans in Congress but also some Democrats, who receive huge campaign contributions from the MMM.
The answer to the riddle of why Bush is willing to risk the ire of Republican allies and perpetrate an action that many people, even those who are not particularly partisan or ideological, will see as vile because it means denying health care to children, is that he is doing it to defend compassionate conservatism against creeping entitlements.
Compassionate conservatism is not just a misleading campaign theme; it is a clever ideological construct. Compassion is a personal virtue, to be conferred at the discretion of the donor to whomever he or she sees fit to favor with whatever level of largesse the beneficent patron deems appropriate. It’s discretionary, a gift conferred from on high, an act of charity and not an entitlement, much less a right to be demanded from below.
Translated to the policy arena, a block grant that provides coverage for about 40 percent of children that otherwise would not have health insurance, as the SCHIP program does now, is OK. It shows how compassionate we are without cutting into the profits of mercenary medicine. But a proposal to extend the program that points the way toward health insurance for every child as a right and might, at the margin, compete with private sector profiteers is anathema.
You can say many things about George W. Bush, but grant him this: He has been relentless in pursuing his agenda. It’s a dastardly, reactionary, pitiless project, but he has a clear objective and he has not wavered from it. It would be great news if political leaders, especially the leading Democratic contenders for the presidency, who say they have a different vision and who claim to strive for a more just society, begin to display equal clarity and persistence.
