The President proposed a $5 billion dollar increase and expansion of the SCHIP program so that more poor children would be covered by the program -- and the Democrats have in turn claimed that he and his supporters are hate children if they don't support a $35 billion increase that would include not just poor kids, but also their parents and the kids of the middle class. Yesterday the veto of the program was sustained.

A failed veto override on a major children's health insurance program yesterday prompted House Democratic leaders to promise to push a new version of the bill, daring Republicans to oppose them.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the new proposal will contain only minor changes. Just before the vote, she had declared: "This is a banner issue for the Congress of the United States."

The vetoed bill would have expanded the $5 billion-a-year program by an average of $7 billion a year over the next five years, for total funding of $60 billion over that period. That would have been enough to boost enrollment to 10 million children, up from 6.6 million, and to dramatically reduce the number of uninsured children in the country, currently about 9 million, supporters say.

While Pelosi is willing to talk to Bush, she stressed that Democrats will accept nothing less than an expansion to 10 million children. "That's not negotiable," she said.

And therein lies the problem. Speaker 11% and Senate Majority Leader 11% and the rest of the 11% Party are so beholden to the Far Left "center" of their party that they are unwilling to consider substantive changes to the bill that could get it near unanimous support.

George W. Bush rightly vetoed the Democrat expansion of the GOP created and supported program, and now he and congressional Republicans are offering a somewhat larger expansion than initially proposed by the GOP -- I've heard figures around $11 billion, as well as the exclusion of illegal alien children and limits on those covered to "only" 300% of the poverty level. These are reasonable changes which Americans support. Will Speaker 11% quit playing politics with children's health and make sure that the children of the poor continue to receive medical coverage?

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Posted by: Greg at 11:07 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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