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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, and House Majority leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., are expected to shepherd a bill through the House that will expand federal children’s health insurance.
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The House on Tuesday passed a bill that would expand a federal children’s health insurance bill, but without enough Republican support to override a promised presidential veto.
The bill, which aims to increase spending for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, from $25 billion to $60 billion over five years, now heads for bipartisan approval in the Senate this week.
President Bush, who believes the bill is too expensive and a step toward socializing American health care, will likely make use of his veto pen right after the Senate clears the bill. But that won’t be the end of it.
A new version of the legislation could then potentially pingpong back and forth several times between Congress and the White House, as a mostly Democratic base of supporters attempts to put political pressure on Bush to sign the bill. But Bush and Republican lawmakers who are critical of the measure say the additional debate will expose the bill’s flaws.
“The longer the bill is out there, the more problems can be seen with it,” said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., did not rule out the possibility of creating a SCHIP bill more attractive to Republicans to add enough GOP support to override a veto. “We would be foolish not to find out if we can get some additional votes,” Hoyer said.
Republican support is already substantial in both the House and the Senate, which places Bush in the awkward position of facing off with top Republicans like Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, who co-authored the bill.
Democrats tout the bill as a much-needed increase in funding that will give states money to go out and find eligible children who are not enrolled in the program.
Republicans say the bill actually expands coverage to children from higher-income families.
The truth is somewhere in between. States currently have the ability to waive the SCHIP income limit of 200 percent of the poverty level and in many cases are insuring children at 300 percent of the poverty level. The SCHIP bill would ban the waivers, but set the limit at 300 percent, which according to the Health and Human Services Department is an annual income of $61,950 for a family of four. A family of four at 200 percent of the povertly level earns $40,000 annually, according to the department.
“It sounds to me like that is an expansion,” Blunt said.
The bill would pay for adding 3.3 million children beyond the 6.6 million already enrolled and also preserve coverage for 660,000 who would have lost it under current funding levels. The bill would be funded in part by a 61-cent increase in the cigarette tax.
sferrechio@dcexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
6:09 AM MST on Thu., Oct. 4, 2007 re: "Democrats move to override veto of children’s health care measure"
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Art B said:
Bush is right. The social security entitlement is broke. The medicare entitlement is broke. So lets create another one, which will soon be broke. We never hear anything about how much this will cost (clue -- lots). There arent enough smokers to pay for it and even if there were, what did they do to deserve this kind of punishment? How many non-payers will get "equal" benefits (I suppose they consider "parents" income to decide who pays, since ALL children are not able to pay by definition). The principal of all govt aid is that the more you "have", the less you "get". So to "get" the most, you need to appear to "have" nothing. What incentive is there for folks to get an education, work hard, and save their money for a better life if its just going to be taken from them and given to folks who have not done these things? Communism 101.
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