Bill Scher
Four regional directors of the Department of Health and Human Services signed their names on copycat letters sent to editorial pages across the country, spreading misinformation about opposing children's health insurance proposals.
At minimum, in the southeast Chris Downing sent the letter to the Lincoln Tribune, Charlotte Observer, Beaufort Gazette, The News-Journal (Daytona Beach), The Ledger (Lakeland, FL) and Tallahassee Democrat. Maureen Lydon sent the same to the Indianapolis Star and Battle Creek Enquirer in the Midwest. Gordon Woodrow got it in the The Register-Herald (Beckley, WV), Charleston Gazette (WV) and Baltimore Sun. Out west, Tom Lorentzen placed the letter in the San Francisco Chronicle and Las Vegas Review-Journal.
All four somehow managed to come up with identical wording for the same dishonest points.
For example:
The President supports reauthorizing this important program for low income children with enough new funding to ensure that no one currently enrolled loses coverage.
This is a flat lie. Bush's proposal would take away coverage from some currently enrolled kids by imposing a federal income limit on eligiblity. (Currently, states have the flexibility to set their own limits.)
According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that "about 200,000 children who would otherwise be covered through SCHIP in 2012 would instead be uninsured" by a Senate GOP proposal which follows Bush's stated principles.
And the head of the American Academy of Family Physicians, Dr. Rick Kellerman of Wichita, KS, lambasted the president's paltry funding as insufficient to simply maintain the level of children's coverage that currently exists: "By not providing the funding needed to maintain the program, the Bush administration is stripping health care for indigent children and families." .....
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