Healthy?

This is probably a dumb question, and one to which I suspect I know the answer, but --

I was reading an article about how the House passed a children's health care bill, and how the Senate is expected to do so as well. Reading the opposition arguments against the bill, my first thought was of the damn cigar chomping big business types, sucking down port while stomping on the less fortunate, again. But I backed down on that after a second, because I don't think that the opposition is comprised primarily, let alone entirely, of people who value business and profits over employees and their health. (Somewhat, yes.) So, I looked at the article some more, and found this:

While the cost of the child health program will increase, they said, tobacco revenues will not, so the government will face a widening gap that will probably be filled with additional tax increases in the future. Moreover, Republicans said, under the bill, some of the money will be spent to provide public coverage for children who already have private health insurance through their parents’ employers. Republicans also complained that the bill did not require states to cover the poorest children first, before covering children from middle-income families.

Are those valid points, I wondered.

Well, the first one, probably. Certainly, the money's got to come from somewhere, and even if the Iraq war shuts down tomorrow, there are plenty of drains on funds. I would guess that taxes, even if motivated by the need to fund this, would be general, with some portion of it earmarked for this, rather than a specific charge. (Interesting idea, though. Wonder if you could get away with a tax whose funds went to a specific cause? Reminds me of the old New Yorker cartoon of the military type bristling at the desk of an IRS auditor, shouting bombastically "I refuse to pay that portion of my taxes which do NOT go to war!")

The second, I have some qualms about. It feels to me as if they're reaching for something, anything to use to complain against with the bill. Thats a tough sell, of course. Who's not for healthy kids? Still, thinking in black and white terms: okay, I can buy it. Require that families who have access to private insurance use it first, just as insurers have been pushing for years that if you have coverage from one spouse for something, you can't supplement it with coverage from the other -- even if the other's is actually better for you than the primary. Also known as 'collectively, how can we structure insurance programs so as to have to pay out the least?'

The third, too, seems like a reach. First off, the idea of Republicans urging that lower income people have a priority on health benefits in anything is on the amazing side, since the official party line is usually to ignore that they even exist. But still: if you have two kids, can only cover one, and one's from a poor family, one is not, it would seem to me to default to the second question: does either of them have health insurance? If so, go with the second answer. And if not -- then, at least on this point, they're equal. Find another point of difference, cover each for a lesser amount, or go deeper into debt.

So here's my question. In all of the wrangling about health care by big-name politicians, do any of them start with 'lets do the best for the most people'? Is that too simplistic an approach for the big, tough real world? I know that black and white answers are too blunt; you need nuance, sensitivity, awareness. Sometimes doing the right thing for one constituency (not the best thing, but the right-enough thing) speaks directly against another constituency. Remember those bumper stickers that say 'I'm (fill in the group/political persuasion)....and I vote!' Well, they all do. Who do you want to piss off, least? And, for how long?)

But still: does anyone even start with the broad statements of what they want to do, use them as a touch stone during negotiations?

As I said, I suspect I know the answer.