Please help debunk this SCHIP LTTE.

I figured this known idiot would be the one to write a letter about Gore's Nobel, but he went for SCHIP first. Everything below is his ranting. Please help me debunk it, won't you?

"Democrats are once again using children as an excuse to expand entitlement programs, bash the president and hide their slow creep toward socialized medicine.

SCHIP is supposed to provide health care for low-income children. But in some states, almost half of the SCHIP recipients are adults — not children. Some states have used the program to enroll illegal aliens, higher-income families and those already covered by private insurance. As with adult enrollment, the bill the president vetoed would have permitted all three.

Instead of requiring proof of citizenship to sign up for benefits, the bill would let states merely ask for a Social Security number — a process that the Social Security Administration has warned would not verify legal status.

Special exemptions also would allow families with incomes up to $83,000 per year to receive subsidies. As a result, the Congressional Budget Office projected that one out of three new enrollees in the program would drop his or her private insurance to receive government benefits.
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Worst of all, since the bill is funded exclusively with new taxes on tobacco, we would need 22 million new smokers, plus current smokers, to smoke at the same rate as today — in order to pay for the program’s extension. Since smokers are predominantly low-income citizens, this amounts to a new tax on the poor. Ironically, this may be the only part of the bill that makes sense, since the poor should be spending their cigarette money on their kids’ health insurance.

It’s time for Democrats to stop playing politics with children and start acting like adults. They should sit down with Republicans in Congress and hammer out a reasonable compromise."

an increase. It required federal approval, however, which was denied.

The true limit is in the low $60's.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3575326&mesg_id=3575326

They would have stood a much better chance of success had they focused on people who are already sick, uninsured and can't get Medicaid.

Its much easier to frame the argument around treating those who are ill than around raising the income limits to help healthy middle class people.

Thanks for the info so far. Just wondering if there's any other ideas out there.