by Mike Hall, Dec 13, 2007

There’s one thing millions of poor kids won’t be unwrapping this holiday season—health care from the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Yesterday, President Bush vetoed, for the second time, a bill to reauthorize the program and give some 10 million mostly low-income children health care coverage.

Bush vetoed the first bill in October, and an override attempt failed, even though the bill won big majorities and had significant bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. Congressional negotiators then crafted a second version to address objections by Bush and some Republican lawmakers.

Says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.):

This is indeed a sad action for him to take, because so many children in our country need access to quality health care. That is why we were able to pass with strong bipartisan support, in the House and Senate, with the veto-proof majority in the Senate, legislation that would cover 10 million children in America at the cost of $35 billion. It was all paid for.

Currently, some 6 million low-income children are covered under SCHIP, and the twice-vetoed legislation would provide an additional $35 billion over five years and extend coverage to an additional 4 million children whose families otherwise couldn’t afford health insurance.

Bush has proposed a much smaller increase, but studies show it would not cover the children currently enrolled, forcing children off the rolls over the next several years.

Last month, a study by the Congressional Research Service showed that if SCHIP funding was continued at current levels, 21 states would be forced to drop children from coverage next year, with nine states forced to deny coverage to children beginning in March.

Temporary spending measures have kept SCHIP operating since funding expired Oct. 1, the end of fiscal 2007. But the latest stop-gap funding bill expires tomorrow, and lawmakers are expected to extend funding for the program at the current level, which covers 6 million children, and add additional funds to ensure that no child is dropped from the SCHIP rolls.

But that still leaves the 4 million children who would have been included under the vetoed bills without health insurance. Overall, there are nearly 9 million children without  health insurance.

Bush issued a series of misleading objections to the SCHIP renewal, ranging from the claim that the bill to provide health insurance to kids who now have none would somehow drive them away from the private insurance industry, to the phony assertion the coverage would include high-income families.

Democrats leaders say they have tried meet with Bush to negotiate an acceptable compromise, but Bush refused. After vetoing the bill, with no reporters or cameras around, Bush’s prepared veto statement lashed out Democrats claiming they refused to negotiate with the White House.

But like his attacks on SCHIP, this claim too twisted the truth. Here’s this from the Associated Press on Bush’s charges. Citing Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the wire service reports:

For instance, Reid approached Bush to ask for negotiations during a ceremony for the Dalai Lama in the Capitol Rotunda in mid-October, a couple of weeks after Bush’s first SCHIP veto, he said. The president told Reid, “No, I’m not moving, meet with my staff,” Reid said at the time.

“The fact is that Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi asked to meet with the president to discuss giving children the health care they need, and he blew them off by telling them to talk to his staff,” Manley said before the veto. “Now he’s going to veto it for a second time without negotiating once.”

Pelosi says the House will hold an override vote Jan. 23 on the SCHIP bill.

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