SCHIP Legislation Update
Just a quick update. Podcast #8 discussed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program or SCHIP bill. Citing that the legislation would not address those families most in need and that the legislation was the first steps towards government-run healthcare, the President vetoed the legislation.
In response, the House pushed for an over-ride vote for October 18th, which took place less than 5 minutes ago. Unfortunately the SCHIP legislation passed 273-156, short of the two-thirds majority needed to over-ride the veto.
Information on how this legislation impacts people with disabilities can be found in Day in Washington #8, the SCHIP disability policy podcast.
Congressional leaders and Bush will now try to negotiate their differences.
For further information – Some of the editorials on the President’s veto of SCHIP
Akron Beacon Journal: “Extending coverage to 5.8 million more children, the majority of whom would otherwise have no health insurance, certainly justifies the spirited effort to overcome the White House” veto of the SCHIP bill, a Beacon Journal editorial states. “That’s not to say the debate on either side in this showdown has been beyond reproach,” but the legislation “has the merit of providing affordable health care for millions more children,” the editorial states, concluding, “If any veto deserved an override, it is the SCHIP veto” (Akron Beacon Journal, 10/17).
Los Angeles Times: “This bears repeating: President Bush’s bullheaded insistence on sabotaging reauthorization” of SCHIP “will hurt the very people — poor and middle-class Americans — he claims he wants to protect,” a Times editorial states. The editorial calls on Republican members of the California congressional delegation to “join the House majority in attempting to reauthorize SCHIP.” The editorial concludes, “If they don’t, voters should remember their failure to act while at the polls next year” (Los Angeles Times, 10/18).
New York Times: Bush has said that he vetoed the SCHIP bill because “he wants to ‘put poor children first’ rather than extend coverage to middle-class children,” but, on “far too many occasions, the president has sacrificed the interests of poor children to what he deems higher budgetary or ideological priorities,” a Times editorial states. “For the past several years, the Bush administration has been squeezing federal support for Medicaid, the primary program to help the poorest families and their children,” according to the editorial. The editorial concludes, “House members should vote today to override the president’s veto. It is the best way to protect America’s low-income children” (New York Times, 10/18).