Letter: Children's insurance deserves Mica support
Richard Hebert
St. Augustine
Publication Date: 10/30/07
Editor: What is it about kids' health that U.S. Rep. John Mica doesn't get?We know neo-Crusader George Bush has this knee-jerk reaction to anything that smacks of 21st Century enlightenment, but is Mica merely his lapdog? How can he explain his refusal to override the Bush veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program's expansion? Perhaps he thinks (like Bush) it should only be for poor kids. Wrong. The poor have Medicaid. This was meant to help struggling middle class families who can't afford to insure their kids. Maybe he thinks it's socialized medicine. Last time I checked, it was a Republican-dominated Congress that created the program. Or maybe he doesn't want to raise taxes? The cigarette tax, which is the only one to be raised to pay for the expanded program, is the best and most popular tax we have. It's a win-win game. Raising taxes on cigarettes increases their costs and, according to every study I've seen, lowers the number of kids who take up the filthy, life-threatening practice of sucking on coffin nails. Fewer cigarettes in kids' mouths and more kids getting health insurance mean more healthy kids. The only ones likely to suffer: the purveyors of cigarettes, Big Tobacco. Is Mica in their hip pocket? Maybe this time next year voters will remember his abominable vote against kids' health.
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