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Senate Passes Children’s Health Bill with Veto-Proof Margin
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By a veto-proof margin, the U.S. Senate voted 67–29 today to renew the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The reauthorization would cover some 4 million of the nation’s 9 million uninsured kids and continue coverage for the more than 6 million children already enrolled.
But President Bush, who has railed against the bill’s inclusion of the additional children, says he will veto the bill. The House passed the bill earlier this week, but its 265–159 margin is about 25 votes short to override a veto.
Says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.):
Despite all of this—all of the good this bill will do and all of the support this bill enjoys— President Bush continues to insist he will try to stop this bill from becoming law.
This is the same President Bush who during the 2004 campaign touted his plan to expand the CHIP program….The president has requested that we spend as much in about one month of the war in Iraq as it costs in our bill to cover 10 million children for a year.
So clearly it isn’t about not having the money. It isn’t about any of the reasons he’s giving….He has crassly calculated that holding children hostage is the only way to raise from the dead his partisan, unpopular and ineffective health agenda.
In fact, Bush “mischaracterizes” the bill and gives a “false description” of the SCHIP renewal, according to the Annenberg Political Fact Check, a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the levels of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. Click here to read the fact sheet.
Funding for the program expires Sept. 30. A continuing resolution to keep government agencies open that haven’t had their appropriations bills approved includes money to fund SCHIP at current levels through Nov. 16. But each day without a reauthorization bill signed into law is another day that 4 million children have to unnecessarily go without health insurance.Says Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.):
There is only one thing standing between improving the successful Children’s Health Insurance Program and covering millions of uninsured children and that is a Presidential signature. We need to hold the President accountable for saying no to providing coverage for over ten million uninsured American children.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is one the most vocal critics of SCHIP and was Bush’s point man during the Senate debate. The national Public Campaign Action Fund is taking him to task in a new commercial. Click here to view. David Donnelly, national campaigns director for the group, says:
Sen. McConnell uses empty rhetoric and tired talking points to oppose children’s health, while defending his campaign donors from the health industry, including tobacco interests.
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8 Comments
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How can a Senate vote be 69 to 39? That is a 108? To many dangerous, treasonous, corrupt traitors in the U.S. Senate…..
Am I to understand the new poverty level for SCRIPS is $40,000, $60,000 or $83,000 for a family of four, why would anyone carry private insurance when they can get the American taxpayers to foot the bill? Especially immigrants…..
SCRIPS coverage I understand is for illegal aliens, criminals from around the world up to 25 years of age?
How fast does your organization think the conspiracy in Washington, DC, the three levels of government will be able to destroy this once great nation?
Goose
Thanks for pointing that out. It was an inadvertent typo and we’ve fixed it.
The heading for this article reads, ‘We will find out soon if President Bush will come to his senses’. I only have one response to that. WHAT SENSES?
It always pays to check your sources for accuracy. There may occassionally be unintended human errors, such as the incorrect number in the votes or purposely misleading information intent to harm the innocent such as the information provided by goose above.
Children, especially the very young should not be characterized as criminals. Children, whether they be the working poor or children of convicted criminals deserve basic health care and education if they are to successfully take their place in society as tax-paying citizens.
Second- The ideological ignorance must stop. Please put the figures into their appropriate reference. The higher limits are correlated to areas wth high cost of living.
SCHIP a poem by Dave Hurlburt 9-24-2007
Bush Bush what do you say! you will veto SCHIP today!
How many children will your veto kill each day.
How much money will you make emergency rooms pay!
Causing all of us higher health care cost because of delay!
Preventative care and regular checkup are the way to go.
Even your own party says they will override your veto.
Our children need health care now. Do not cause a delay.
You need to sign SCHIP and you need to do it today!
Your Political ideas not to raise taxes are short sighted
If you veto SCHIP your mistake will be righted.
Parents, children, and the congress are united.
See the Healthy children and you will be delighted!
David Hurlburt CWA local 9410
Goose, why is it that you have to be anti-immigrant to be pro-labor. Or are you pro-labor??
by cave17
September 28th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Goose, why is it that you have to be anti-immigrant to be pro-labor. Or are you pro-labor??
I don’t know about Goose, but I’m both. I’m pro-(LEGAL) immigrant (illegals are not immigrants they are home invaders) and pro-(LEGAL)labor.
Why are you worried about categorizing , ideologies or semantics (i.e. unimportant things). SCHIP stands for State Children’s Health Insurance Plan, and it is exactly what it says it is. Money goes to the state, and the state sets up programs to aid in the insurance coverage for children, most of whom will most certainly fall through the cracks. Whether a handful of ‘illegal’ children get health care through this program is irrelevant. Most of the children that will get coverage are those from working families who CAN NOT AFFORD HEALTH INSURANCE, or whose EMPLOYERS DO NOT PROVIDE THE COVERAGE to begin with.
We need to take care of the children who desparately need our help now. If you want to ask questions, or disqualify them later, that will be up to the individual states to decide. But the real issue is maintaining the program, which unfortunately President Bush, almost single handedly, is bend on destroying. But why?
Only a fool would not allow children to receive health care who have no other means to receive it. This program is already in place; it just needs the OK for continued funding. The program works. These are hard times for the working poor, and the middle class, as well.
Obviously, President Bush, the heads of state and many Republicans don’t seem to give a damn about the people in this country. Our government’s deplorable apathy towards its own citizens, and the desire to keep us in a never-ending war is destroying our country in so many ways that it is almost incomprenhensible that we have sunk to such an extreme low.