WASHINGTON, — President Bush vetoed the children’s health insurance bill today, as he had promised to do, setting the stage for more negotiations between the White House and Congress.
Mr. Bush wielded his pen with no fanfare just before leaving for a visit to Lancaster, Pa. The veto was only the fourth of Mr. Bush’s presidency.
“Because the Congress has chosen to send me a bill that moves our health care system in the wrong direction, I must veto it,” Mr. Bush said in his veto statement, adding that he hoped to work with the lawmakers “to produce a good bill that puts poorer children first.”
The bill was approved by Congress with unusual bipartisan support, as many Republicans who side with the president on almost everything else voted to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, from its current enrollment of about 6.6 million children to more than 10 million.
The measure would provide $60 billion over the next five years, $35 billion more than current spending and $30 billion more than the president proposed. Mr. Bush and his backers argue that the bill would be a step toward federalization of health care, and that it would steer the program away from its core purpose of providing insurance for poor children and toward covering children from middle-class families. The White House has rejected as “preposterous” any suggestion that Mr. Bush does not care about the welfare of poor children.
Later, in an appearance before the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Bush expanded on his reasons for vetoing the bill. “It is estimated that if this program were to become law, one out of every three persons that would subscribe to the new expanded SCHIP would leave private insurance,” the president said. “The policies of the government ought to be to help poor children and to focus on poor children, and the policies of the government ought to be to help people find private insurance, not federal coverage. And that’s where the philosophical divide comes in.”
As expected, the veto brought immediate statements of anger from Democrats.
“Today we learned that the same president who is willing to throw away a half trillion dollars in Iraq is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that amount to bring health care to American children,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Mr. Kennedy’s fellow Democrat from Massachusetts and Mr. Bush’s 2004 opponent, Senator John Kerry, said, “Today with a single stroke of his veto pen, President Bush single-handedly jeopardized health care for millions of poor children.”
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said the “heartless veto” showed how “detached President Bush is from the priorities of the American people.”
Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said, “Today the president showed the nation his true priorities: $700 billion for a war in Iraq, but no health care for low-income kids.”
Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey said: “Once again, President Bush has missed an opportunity to display compassionate leadership. Instead, he has resorted to political and ideological gamesmanship rather than seek a bipartisan solution that would protect this nation’s most vulnerable children.”
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said: “We have no choice but to try to override his veto. The Senate already has the votes to do it, so it is now up to the holdouts in the House to decide whether to vote their conscience or join the president in putting ideology above kids.”
Mr. Schumer put his finger on the numbers working against supporters of the bill. It cleared the Senate by a veto-proof 67 to 29, but the vote in the House was 265 to 159, a couple dozen short of the two-thirds needed to override Mr. Bush’s veto, assuming that the full House voted.
Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House Republican whip, told The Associated Press he was “absolutely confident” that there was strong enough opposition in the House to sustain a veto. But Mr. Blunt’s counterpart in the Senate, Trent Lott of Mississippi, said Congress should be able to reach a compromise with the president. “We can work it out,” Mr. Lott told the A.P.
Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said Mr. Bush’s critics had “made their political point.”
“What the president said is, look, send me the bill, I will veto it, and then we will get about the business of trying to find some common ground and reach an agreement on a way forward,” Ms. Perino said.
source: 3oct2007
US President George W Bush has vetoed a bill to expand a children's healthcare insurance scheme, after it was passed with a large majority in the Senate. Mr Bush argues it takes the programme beyond its original purpose of insuring children from low-income families.
The vetoed bill proposed higher tobacco taxes to provide an extra $35bn (£17bn) to insure some 10 million children.
Children's health insurance is set to be a campaign issue in next year's elections, analysts say.
Eighteen Republican senators joined Democrats last week in passing the legislation by a 67-29 vote.
But the House of Representatives, which approved the bill by 265-159, was well short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
It is only the fourth time Mr Bush has used his veto power in the course of his presidency.
Public support
The State Children's Health Insurance Programme (SCHIP) currently subsidizes health care for some 6.6 million people, most of them children.
It is directed at families who earn too much to qualify for the Medicaid programme for the poor but cannot afford private health insurance cover.
Mr Bush had said he wanted only a $5bn increase in funding for the scheme.
He argued that expanding its coverage further would encourage people currently covered in the private sector to switch to government coverage - and that the proposal was too costly.
His decision to veto the bill is likely to prove unpopular with many people, however, correspondents say.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll suggested that more than seven in 10 Americans supported the $35bn increase proposed in the bill.
Congressional battle
Democrats in the House say they will seek to persuade sufficient Republican congressmen to change sides to be able to override Mr Bush's veto.
But House Republican leader Roy Blunt said he was "absolutely confident" that he would be able to prevent that happening.
Republican Senator Trent Lott is quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying that the two parties should be able to reach a compromise once the bill has been vetoed.
"We should not allow it to be expanded to higher and higher income levels, and to adults," he said. "This is about poor children."
Many Republicans are likely to feel the pressure of public opinion ahead of congressional elections in November next year.
Mr Bush has previously used his veto twice to block legislation that would have eased restrictions on federally funded stem-cell research and once to halt a bill linking war funding to a timetable for withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq.
source: 3oct2007
WASHINGTON — US President George W. Bush on Wednesday vetoed legislation expanding a health care program mostly aimed at poor children, a politically risky move ahead of the November 2008 elections.
The president's Democratic foes, unable to curtail the unpopular war in Iraq, have seized on his opposition to their plan to build up the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) as a potent political weapon.
Bush's top Republican allies have declared they have the votes to prevent the US Congress from overriding his veto -- even as some rank-and-file have worriedly surveyed a political landscape dominated by the war.
About 72 percent of Americans back the measure, according a recent public opinion poll by the Washington Post and ABC television. The survey had an error margin of plus or minus three percentage points.
Aware of the potential political costs, Bush formally rejected the bill behind closed doors at the White House, with a junior aide announcing the move over the loudspeakers in the media workspace.
It was just the fourth time the president used his veto power since taking office in January 2001. US voters will decide their next president and control of the US Congress in the November 2008 elections.
Democrats immediately pounded Bush, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accusing him of "denying health care to millions of low-income kids" and vowing to "fight hard" to win the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.
"With today's veto, President Bush has turned his back on America's children and he stands alone," Reid charged in a statement.
The White House had opposed the bill as a step towards socialized medicine, and complained that it would be too expensive induce some families now using private insurers to switch to government-funded coverage, while embracing a significantly more modest expansion of the program.
"He wants to make sure that the neediest children are covered first," spokeswoman Dana Perino said just before the veto. "But he does want to work with members of Congress to see if we can find common ground.
SCHIP, a program jointly managed by the states and Washington, subsidizes health insurance for roughly 6.6 million people, most of them children, who fall in the gap between being able to pay for private care and being eligible for another government health care program, Medicare.
The Senate passed the SCHIP program in September with 67 members of the 100 member chamber voting for it -- enough to override a veto, while the margin was not as wide in the House of Representatives.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the program would allow 4.4 million more children to enroll in the program. The cost of 35 billion dollars over five years would be offset by raising the tax on a packet of cigarettes.
source: 3oct2007
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