SCHIP Nears Passage, But Faces Bush Veto
By SusanUnPC on September 27, 2007 at 5:52 PM in Bush/Cheney, Health Care
The Democrats have persevered, despite threats by President Bush to veto the expansion of SCHIP provisions to bring more children on board for basic health care, and now a number of Republicans have joined them. ThinkProgress has video of conservative Kansas senator Pat Roberts, “one of the 18 Republican senators to vote for the compromise legislation, [excoriating] the White House for holding the bill ‘hostage’.” WaPo:
Senate Nears Approval of Children’s Health Bill
The Senate, with an overwhelming bipartisan vote today, broke a filibuster and prepared to send President Bush a $35 billion measure that would revamp and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, setting up the biggest domestic confrontation between the president and Congress since Bush took office.
The 69-30 tally to end debate on the bill is a wider margin than the Senate needs to override a veto. Supporters included 18 of the Senate’s 49 Republicans. Final passage is expected this afternoon.
Call me a skeptic, but I wonder — when it comes time to vote to override Bush’s veto, which requires 67 votes — can those same senators be counted on again, or will two or three GOP senators cave to the certain-to-come White House pressure?
David Broder seems to think the Republicans are standing tall against the White House. It could be. Or could they be attempting to have the best of both worlds? After all, they’ll be able to tell voters in ’08 that they voted for SCHIP but that the president vetoed it.
Josh Marshall quotes Broder:
The spectacle Tuesday of 151 House Republicans voting in lock step with the White House against expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was one of the more remarkable sights of the year. Rarely do you see so many politicians putting their careers in jeopardy.
The bill they opposed, at the urging of President Bush, commands healthy majorities in both the House and Senate but is headed for a veto because Bush objects to expanding this form of safety net for the children of the working poor. He has staked out that ground on his own, ignoring or rejecting the pleas of conservative senators such as Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch, who helped shape the compromise that the House approved and that the Senate endorsed.
Josh Marshall follows up:
Broder gets the key dynamic right. And this is one reason there is an as-yet-unrevealed though in many ways profound antipathy for President Bush among many congressional Republicans. He’s not running again. And he couldn’t care less how much he damages his party over the next 18 months. Often political leaders face a choice — stand for principle and possibly have a strong political issue at the next election or achieve some substantive accomplishment. Here the Dems appear to have every likelihood of achieving both. They’ll probably get SCHIP and while also having the president inflict what may turn out to be a fatal political wound on a number of House Republicans. He’ll bring them down in the noble cause of keeping lower and middle income kids from getting health care.
Maybe. But the GOP members of Congress running for reelection in ’08 can also say that they voted for children’s health care, while silently enjoying the reality that Bush’s veto killed the plan.
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P.S. Here’s some of what Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) said in the floor debate today:
I have yet to see a plan from the administration that can actually pass the Congress. In fact, I have yet to see an actual plan from the administration. I have yet to see bullet points from the administration. I have yet to see any plan that can be articulated in some fashion to sell to the American public, or to the members of this body. We don’t even have an acronym!
OF NOTE: Kos points out something dreadful. And I’ll add that I find that this is the CURSE of the hard-headed far-left Democrats who demand perfection over giving people something that will improve their and their children’s lives:
OH-10: Ugh
by kos
Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 02:14:57 PM PDTJust wanted to point that Dennis Kucinich joined a horde of Republicans to vote against the SCHIP bill in the House.
Apparently, it wasn’t perfect enough.
One of his two primary challengers, Rosemary Palmer:
I was appalled by Congressman Kucinich’s vote against the State Children’s Health Insurance Program on the House floor tonight. This bill would have expanded an already successful program to provide health insurance to millions of children across the country. It takes some twisted logic for someone who claims to support health care coverage for all to oppose this necessary and overdue move in the right direction. …
I have some friends who are single-payer-health-care-or-nothing advocates. Nothing else will do. None of the candidates’ plans — Clinton’s, Edwards’ and Obama’s — are good enough for them. I just shake my head. They’d rather go down in defeat from now until Doomsday than give people a less-perfect plan that will, right away, improve their health care.
My conclusion: They really don’t care about the people who desperately need a better health care system, even if it’s not perfect. They only care about their hard-headed principles.
by Ronald Scott
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