Bush’s Veto of Children’s Health Bill ‘Callous’

Some 4 million children lost a chance to have health care coverage when the House voted 273-156 October 18 and failed to overturn President Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) renewal. It would have taken a two-thirds majority to override Bush’s veto.

The bill—passed by large majorities in the U.S. House and Senate—would have funded the program for five years and covered the 6 million children already enrolled, plus an additional 4 million uninsured children whose families cannot afford the skyrocketing cost of private health insurance. Overall, some 9 million children in the nation do not have heath insurance.

The Republicans’ anti-SCHIP campaign was marked by “misconceptions, half truths and down right lies,” said Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.). Bush and his backers painted the vetoed bill as a step toward “socialized medicine” and “government-run” health care that would undermine the private insurance industry and even allow families making as much as $83,000 a year to enroll their children in SCHIP.

But as a fact sheet from Families USA says: “Claims by the president that this bill raises the SCHIP eligibility level to $83,000 (400 percent of the federal poverty level) in annual income is unambiguously false. There isn’t a single state in the country with such a high eligibility level.”

In a letter to the House urging an override, AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel said the SCHIP bill, “does not change states’ eligibility requirements and retains the president’s authority to deny any state proposal to cover children in families with income above two times the federal poverty level. Furthermore, the bill is well-targeted to extend coverage to the lowest income children who now have no health insurance. More than 75 percent of the children expected to gain coverage under the bill have family incomes below twice the poverty level.

The Los Angeles Times calls Bush’s claim that the SCHIP bill is a move to socialized medicine a straw man: “This bears repeating: President Bush’s bullheaded insistence on sabotaging reauthorization of the popular State Children’s Health Insurance Program, better known as SCHIP, will hurt the very people—poor and middle-class Americans—he claims he wants to protect….Setting up a socialized-medicine straw man for election season is apparently more important to the GOP than providing medical care for the nation’s kids.”

Bush’s veto was out of step with the vast majority of Americans—including Republicans—who backed the bill. A recent poll showed 81 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of Independents and 61 percent of Republicans back the SCHIP legislation. In addition, 43 governors, Republican and Democrats alike, backed the SCHIP bill, as did many other state lawmakers.

A letter from 82 Republican and Democratic New Jersey state legislators urged the state’s congressional delegation to override Bush’s veto: “The veto jeopardizes our successful Family Care program, which currently serves 124,000 children….The cruel reach of this presidential veto will be felt by children up and down our state in every county, district and community. There are an estimated 254,000 uninsured children in New Jersey….The futures of these children may be forever hindered by the lack of access to preventative treatment and medical care in the here and now.”

After Bush vetoed the bill Oct. 3, children’s health advocates, community groups, unions and others have rallied to speak out against the veto. In one of the largest rallies, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told a Capitol Hill rally in Washington, D.C., “In this great and wealthy nation, no child should be forced to limit his or her future because of health problems that can be managed or even prevented with proper care.

“And yet—in the richest country in the world—nearly 10 million of our children can’t see a doctor when they need one. Prevention is a proven money-saver and yet 10 million kids can’t even see a doctor for a check-up.

“Bush’s veto comes at a time when America’s health care system is clearly broken. Fewer and fewer employers are offering health coverage to their workers. And many of the workers who are offered health insurance at work can’t afford to buy coverage for their families. The cost of health insurance is growing at three times the rate of our paychecks,” Sweeney said.

Reaching across generations, the Alliance for Retired Americans held rallies and marched at several congressional district offices, urging lawmakers in Ohio, Nevada, Indiana, South Carolina and other states to buck Bush’s veto.

Bush’s earlier proposal to renew SCHIP would have thrown some 800,000 children from the program, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said during the House debate October 18. Bush claimed he was willing to negotiate a “compromise.” But Bush has continually ignored the fact that the vetoed bill itself was a compromise.

“Democratic leaders have already compromised with Republicans to get a bill with broad bipartisan support and the President’s proposed level of funding won’t even keep pace with the rising cost of coverage for the children now enrolled in CHIP,” said the AFL-CIO’s Bill Samuel. “To compromise further would mean shutting out some or possibly all of the nearly 4 million children who gain coverage under this bill.

Perhaps Newsday summed up Bush’s action the best: “Bush’s hard line against SCHIP expansion is callous and potentially costly. Uninsured, sick children do get medical attention, but often later than they should and in costly emergency rooms. Administration officials said…that Bush is focused on protecting the private health care system. He should be focused on protecting uninsured children.”

Funding for the program expired Sept. 30. But Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep government agencies open that haven’t had their appropriations bills approved and included money to fund SCHIP at current levels through Nov. 16. It’s unclear at this time how soon Congress will act on another SCHIP bill or how far Bush is willing to “compromise.”

- by Mike Hall, http://blog.aflcio.org