There aren’t actually, that’s the whole point. The for-high-profit health care industry (anything under 20% is considered a failure nowadays) has made or is rapidly making health care in the US something only the rich can afford. As corporations bail out of providing insurance as a bennie, there are increasingly fewer options available for the middle class and -in many cases - none whatever for those at low-income or even lower-middle income levels.

I tend to agree with your other criticisms, I’m afraid. For the record, the House version paid for the SCHIP increase by “adjusting” the obscene amount of money in Medicare Advantage, currently, as eRobin put it, “bleeding tax dollars into the accounts of insurance companies.” That would have been a much more sensible solution, so of course it was vetoed by Republicans.

plus, the states idea of childrens healthcare generally involves ladling out as many pills as possible so that all health problems can be solved by turning kids into zombies.

I’m sure this families story is genuine but there are many many other ways they can get he treatment they need.

It appears that the advocates of SCHIP expansion did a poor job of choosing their poster family. The Frosts got a profile in the Baltimore Sun and one of their children, Graeme, was trundled up to Congress to pull on America’s heart strings. But …