While President Clinton and other bourgeois politicians intone concern about the dangers of cigarette smoking on the "nation's public health," the Senate voted June 24 to increase eligibility age for Medicare recipients from 65 to 67 as they ponder a cut of $115 billion from this entitlement program.

What hypocrisy! They even have the gall to present their current plans for the Medicaid program as a "major expansion" that will cover only 500,000 uninsured children, while acknowledging this will fall far short of the 10.5 million children who have no health insurance. At the same time, this bipartisan Medicaid plan will cut $14 billion from hospitals in working-class neighborhoods.

A trademark of the Clinton administration is to launch its attacks on the social benefits or democratic rights of working people under the veneer of "protecting" children.

Right-wing politicians like Patrick Buchanan exploit the transparent hypocritical nature of these bourgeois measures to justify their reactionary ideology in the "culture war." "Big Gov't or Godfather?" roared the headline of Buchanan's June 25 column in the New York Post, attacking government "extortion" in the tobacco pact.

Buchanan's demagogy against "Big Government" has nothing in common with the need for the labor movement to reject giving the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate nicotine as a drug. This jurisdiction will only give cops and other government agencies greater realm to victimize workers who smoke.

That's why working people should reject this "historic public health achievement" as a victory for healthy or "sick smokers." We should demand free universal health care for all with no restrictions and an end to taxes on cigarettes.  
 
 
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