Oct 30, 2007

Dear Rep. Cole,

Thank you so much for your letter regarding the State Children’s Health Care Insurance bill.   I was very disappointed to learn that you voted against this bill, not only once, but now twice even though objectionable items were clarified.  I don’t understand at all why you voted against the revised bill? 

Your letter included several inaccuracies and misconceptions about this bill.  You have only quoted the Bush administration’s ‘talking points’ on this issue.  Let me provide you some unbiased factual information on the contents of the bill.

First of all you state that SCHIP is ‘about providing health care for the nation’s poorest children’.  Medicaid, not SCHIP provides health insurance for our poorest children.  SCHIP is directed at our nation’s working poor who make too much for Medicaid, but who can’t afford today’s costly private health insurance. 

You also state that the bill would include childless adults.  This is not true!   This point was clarified in the revised bill which you still did not support.  Why?

Your $82,000 claim is also specious.  This figure comes from the request of New York State to allow families making over 4 times the poverty index to qualify for SCHIP.  This request was turned down by the Dept of Health and Human Services.  This denial would have stood under the original bill.  The revised bill clarified this point by referencing a maximum income limit of 3 times the poverty index.  This amount is approximately $62,000, but you still voted against it.   Why??

If you do not think that the tobacco tax is an appropriate way to fund SCHIP, then why don’t you look into the fraud and waste by war profiteers in Iraq?   Surely there is enough funding for SCHIP if the billions of dollars wasted in Iraq are eliminated.   Why are the private contractors getting a free ride when we claim that we can’t afford to insure our needy children? 

Please you must do a better job on your homework to find out what the bills you are voting against really contain!   The people of Oklahoma and the nation overwhelmingly support the modest expansion of SCHIP.  As our representative and a pro-life Christian you must vote to approve the latest legislation.    Remember Christ’s words, “In as much as ye have done it to the least of these you have done it unto me”.  

Sincerely, 

Molly Roberts,

A registered voter who votes in every election