Democrats: Children Will Get Insurance
WASHINGTON (AP)
House Democratic leaders said Sunday they were working to gather votes to override a veto on a popular children’s health program, but pledged to find a way to cover millions without insurance should their effort fail.
In talk show interviews, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer did not dispute claims by Republican leaders that the GOP will have enough votes to sustain President Bush’s veto when the House holds its override vote on Thursday.
Pelosi and Hoyer promised to pass another bipartisan bill if needed.
“Isn’t that sad for America’s children?” said Pelosi, D-Calif., when asked about the GOP’s assurances the override vote will fail. “It doesn’t mean we aren’t working hard throughout the country: governors, mayors, people who deal with children on a regular basis.
“We’ll try very hard to override it. But one thing’s for sure: We won’t rest until those 10 million children have health care,” she said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
Hoyer, D-Md., declined to predict Thursday’s vote.
“This is a defining moment for the Republican Party, in my opinion,” Hoyer said, before adding later: The program is “not going to die. We’re going to go back and we’re going to pass another bill.”
House Democrats scheduled the vote after Bush earlier this month vetoed legislation that would increase spending for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. Bush has called for a $5 billion increase.
An override requires a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate. The Senate approved the increase by a veto-proof margin, but the earlier House vote fell about two dozen votes short.
The program provides health insurance to children in families with incomes too great for Medicaid eligibility but not enough to afford private insurance. Bush has said the bill is too costly. The president now says he might be willing to provide more than $5 billion originally offered but that the current proposal shifts too much insurance burden onto the government rather than private providers.
On Sunday, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he hopes that Democrats will agree to negotiate once the veto is sustained so that the children’s insurance program can be reauthorized.
“We will have the votes to sustain the president’s veto,” Boehner said. “And I think the differences are resolvable, but we’re standing on our principle that poor kids ought to come first.”
“Most people don’t want government-run health insurance,” he added. “Republicans are working on a plan that will provide access to all Americans to high-quality health insurance, make sure that we increase the quality of health insurance that we have in America.”
Wild Thing’s comment……..
Interesting that the AP left out three key points:
1. This bill is funded by increasing the tax on cigarettes. This funding source is already declining due to the number of people giving up smoking. What are the RATs plans for funding when the cigarette tax increase is no longer enough?
2. As proposed by the RATs, this bill, originally designed for folks just barely outside Medicaid, will pay benefits for families earning in excess of $80,000 per year and will cover “kids” up to 25 years of age.
3. There’s nothing “wrong” with the existing bill, especially with the $5,000,000,000 that President Bush wants to add. This BS bill from the RATs is nothing more than one more stealth step towards government run health care.
These socialists pushing this thing are in our faces with it, but the media is perpetuating the big lie about the specifics. The media are no longer doing their jobs, instead they have blatantly chosen sides. They are nothing but full blown partisan democrats of the worst kind.
Thanks to Nutsy Pelosi’s Pro-Choice-Abortion Party they won’t have to give health care to the 48 million babies they aborted since 1973! Yes Nancy, health coverage AND abortions are for the children…
Democrats: Children Will Get Insurance
You didn’t mention that what they are doing will kill the private insurer, leaving the rest with no choices.
From a border state two phenomena happen here.
1.)For quality care in a timely fashion Canadians come south of the border to ‘get ‘r done’.
2.) There are an awful lot of Canadian doctors practicing in the United States.
Of course the Illegals have no impact on our health costs, they are not part of the problem according to the Dems, they are our greatest assets. Just ask George.
When did Bush switch parties ?
Why is the country in such a hurry to rush into socialized medicine.
It doesn’t work in Canada, it doesn’t work in Italy it doesn’t work in Briton. What makes them think it will work here ?
Mark–
It hasn’t worked in other countries because the right people haven’t been in charge!
And, funding something like this by increasing the tax (decreasing the demand and thus the revenue) on an item that faces increasing restrictions on its’ use (decreasing the demand and thus the revenue) pretty much defines the term “stupid”.
Does the tobacco tax bring in that much money? Or are the Dhimmicrats hoping most of us can’t do that much arithmetic?
Darth yes they do easily kill of generations of babies from being born.
Jack thank you so much, your right.
Mark, he is all the way out of the closet now so to speak. Gung ho globalist for sure.
Rick, that is right about the tobacco, more and more people have stopped smoking. What the heck are they going to do tell people to start smoking again to get the tax from it. Amazing how they think.