President Bush threatening to veto a plan to expand children's health insurance? What a shocker

President Bush threatening to veto a plan to expand children's health insurance? What a surprise:

The Senate plan would expand children's health insurance by $35 billion over the next five years, while the House is expected to take up a competing proposal later in the week that could boost the initiative by $50 billion during the same time frame.

Bush, however, has vowed to veto either plan, saying that the new coverage would encourage people to leave their private insurers for a government-run program. The White House reiterated its opposition yesterday, condemning the Senate bill as essentially extending "a welfare benefit to middle-class households" earning up to $83,000 a year.

On the Senate floor yesterday, Senator Orrin G. Hatch -- an influential Utah Republican and one of two original cosponsors of the SCHIP bill that became law in 1997 -- said "mistakes" by the administration "have caused us a lot of problems here."

"We are trying to do what is right by our children, who are currently not being helped by our healthcare system," Hatch said. "If we cover children properly, we will save billions of dollars in the long run. Even if we didn't [save billions], we should still take care of these children."

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Jr., a Republican from Kentucky and a lstaunch White House ally, said that while the children's health insurance program has been a "tremendous success," the Senate legislation was far too generous.

Silly Orin Hatch! Apparently Hatch, and the other Republicans supporting this bill, didn't get the memo. In today's Republican Party, "family values" means "being afraid of gays," not "giving children health insurance." That's for Democrats like Ted Kennedy. President Bush and Sen. McConnell couldn't care less how effective the plan is, or how many billions of dollars it will save. They're more afraid of the slippery slope. They think it will lead to "government-run health insurance." First health care for old people, then children-- the next thing you know, every American might think they deserve medical care! Then we'll end up like all those other countries!

I can't help but post the World Health Organization's rankings of the world's healthcare systems:

1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America

Hey, what's the difference between all those other countries and America? They have government-run health care systems!