Letter to the Editor of D&C on SCHIP

Here's a wonderful letter to the editor about the SCHIP veto, written by a fellow Canandaigua resident, published in Saturday's Democrat & Chronicle:

Drop emotional SCHIP rhetoric

Emotional and dubious TV ads criticizing Congressman Kuhl and Republicans require correction.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program is not being discontinued or de-funded. The president is willing to make a modest expansion of funds for the program. It is the expansion to adults and entire families well above the poverty level that the new bill would include, that makes it irresponsible. Social Security is projected, by some estimates, to reach insolvency by 2017. Medicaid costs have been passed down to states and then on to municipalities, causing strains and increased taxes. Medicare is another entitlement with open-ended financial burdens.

Honest media would report what the cost projections for each of these programs were at inception, and the dollar figures in cost at present as an example of the Congress' ineptitude, or deceptive practices, in initiating these dependency programs. Without addressing how to pay for the above obligations, Dems want to burden you and your children even more. Decide about this as you decide about your own financial decisions, using reason and the facts, not emotion.

—MIKE LOFTON
CANANDAIGUA