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Déjà Veto: Bush Says He Will Veto Second Children’s Health Bill |
President Bush again says he plans to veto health care coverage for 10 million kids after the U.S. Senate—for a second time— passed a bill (64–30) to renew the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) yesterday.
Last month, Bush vetoed the first version. In doing so, he made several false claims about the bill, including the phony assertion that providing health insurance to uninsured children—children who have no private health insurance—would hurt the private health insurance industry. Bush also claimed the bill would give free children’s health insurance to families making more than $83,000 a year.
Says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.):
Whether it’s the president making up phony excuse after phony excuse to oppose SCHIP or Republican leaders repeatedly using procedural delays, it is obvious there are some who will do anything to stand in the way of enacting this bill.
Earlier this week, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) led an unsuccessful filibuster against the children’s health care bill.
Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:
Let’s look at the real reason the president and his supporters are fighting so hard to prevent kids from getting health insurance through SCHIP. Bush has said pretty clearly he wants to protect the market for private health insurers and not allow America to creep one inch nearer a health care system that is available to all.
It all comes down to dollars and cents—for the insurance companies. There are huge profits at stake: The insurance industry pulled down more than $15 billion in 2006 profits—a stunning 1,084 percent increase in five years. Insurance company stock prices jumped a whopping 500 percent between 1996 and 2006—which is great for healthy investors.
The first bill on children’s health passed both the House and Senate with large bipartisan majorities, but the House vote fell short of veto proof. In a move to get a bill passed and signed—or with enough support to override a veto—before SCHIP funding runs out Nov. 16, lawmakers made several changes addressing opponents’ objections. Last week, the House passed the second version. But Bush has continued his “my way or the highway” approach to the bill.
Currently, some 6 million low-income children are covered under SCHIP and the new legislation would provide an additional $35 billion over five years and extend coverage to an additional 4 million children who otherwise couldn’t afford health insurance.
Bush has proposed a much smaller increase, but studies show that increase would not cover the children currently enrolled and force children off the rolls over the next several years.
A new study by the Congressional Research Service released this week shows that if SCHIP funding was continued at current levels, next year, 21 states would be forced to drop children from coverage and nine states would be forced to deny coverage to children beginning in March.
California would be one of the hardest hit states. Officials there already are drafting plans to allow the state to create a SCHIP waiting list and to remove some 1.1 million children from coverage. Leslie Cummings, director of the agency that runs SCHIP in the state, told The New York Times:
Given the continued uncertainty, we will have to start dropping children from the program—64,000 a month starting in January—to save money.
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I hope that President Bush gets more in touch with the American people on this thing since the Senate did pass the Schip bill for healthcare for disadvantaged kids. I am totally in favor of this legislation since kids die without healthcare. Thank you, David O’Malley
Problem is, Bush is not in touch with reality. He favors his cronies and top $$ contributors, the tobacco industry over children.
He continues the spin that SCHIP will cover children from families making over $80,000 a yr.
His goal is too put this country so deep in debt by massive spending with his war game, the Democrat President will spend his/her 1st. 4 yrs. trying to balance the budget. After 4 yrs., they will try an uprise blaming Democrats not being able to balance the budget and attempt to take the WH in ‘12.
He boasted about being bi-partisan, working both sides of the aisle, but look at his record. He is a dangerous, sick, arrogant person.
The real problem is that he and the evil people in his administration know exactly what they are doing. I have been researching what happened in the run up to Nazi Germany and our history is running parallel right now. We had better wake up. If you think for one minute that we are going to have a transparent presidential election you are crazy. By WWII standards, this president is one of the worst war criminals in history. Coupled with the fact that he used to blow up frogs and was in trouble in college for using a coat hanger as a branding iron in college hazing rituals, we are in serious trouble. This man is a sadistic maniac with his finger on the button.
To try to push the $35b increase through twice without the votes to make it veto proof is an exercise in futility and a great waste of time. After the first go round they should have acquiesced and taken the presidents offer of a more modest increase. This is politics, if you really care about the children it’s better to take a more incremental and pragmatic approach and move this bill forward.
SCHIP as presented to Bush and rightfully vetoed by Bush, would have forced me to pay for health insurance for healthy 24 yr old married couple with 2 kids making up to 82,000 a year. I urge bipartisian politics to pass a reasonable SCHIP bill that will fund the needy of our society and ONLY the needy.