Republican Senator Spends August Recess Attacking Uninsured Children

Posted by Bill Scher at 6:29 AM on August 16, 2007.

This post, written by Bill Scher, originally appeared on Tom Paine.com

Several congressional conservatives are continuing to spend their August recess spreading misinformation to justify their votes against children's health insurance.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., is a notable member of the anti-kids crew.

He's up for re-election in 2008. A recent poll showed his standing among Georgia voters is much weaker than presumed.

And earlier this year, Georgia's federally funded child insurance program, PeachCare, had to temporarily stop enrolling kids because they were out of money.

In fact, the state Associated Press reported the votes of him and his allies by saying, "Months after Georgia ran short of money for PeachCare children's health insurance, Republicans in the state's congressional delegation are opposing efforts to expand its parent program in Washington."

So, it takes a lot of peaches to deny your own constituents the necessary funds to provide health insurance to their kids, a year away from your next election.

And he's on defensive. To avoid further damage to his political career, he's been trying to explain his vote, disseminating the standard misinformation to at least two local papers and a joint meeting of several Rotary clubs.

His favorite tack is to rail against New York: "I don't think Georgia taxpayers ought to be subsidizing a family in New York making $80,000 a year."

But such misinformation may only go so far.

After all the demagoguing about New York, at the end of the day, it's going to be about Georgia.

Either Georgia is going to get critical funds without Chambliss' help, or help for Georgia will be blocked by Chambliss' posse of conservative obstructionists.

UPDATE: Georgia blog Tondee's Tavern reports that Chambliss' constituents are noticing that he's "making the local rounds pushing a sorry sack of excuses for his no vote on renewing SCHIP... ."

Tagged as: republicans, children, health care, chambliss

Bill Scher is the executive editor of LiberalOasis.com and the online writer/editor for Campaign for America's Future. He is the author of Wait! Don't Move To Canada!: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America, a weekly contributor to Air America Radio's The Sam Seder Show and a fellow at the Commonweal Institute.