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This article originally provided by
The Charleston Gazette
October 4 2007
State health-care coalitions urge Congress to undo Bush child insurance veto
Representatives of state health- care coalitions Wednesday decried President
Bush’s veto of a bill to dramatically expand coverage under the Children’s
Health Insurance Plan, and urged Congress to override the veto.
“The president says in his veto message that it’s socialized medicine, but
it’s just not true,” said Renate Pore of the West Virginia Healthy Kids and
Families Coalition. “If CHIP is socialized medicine, then so is Medicare.”
“He has put politics and ideology ahead of the health care of West Virginia
children, and that’s wrong,” said Perry Bryant, director of West Virginians For
Affordable Health Care.
Despite bipartisan support in Congress, Bush vetoed the bill that would have
expanded national eligibility for CHIP from 6.6 million to 10 million children,
at a cost of $35 billion over five years.
Bush said the plan was too costly, and would have expanded the federally
funded-state administered program beyond its original goal of providing health
coverage for children from low- and moderate-income families.
West Virginia’s CHIP program covers children from families with incomes up to
220 percent of the poverty level. Under a 2006 law, that eligibility level was
to increase incrementally each year, up to 300 percent by 2011.
That would expand eligibility from the current 25,000 children covered by
CHIP to a total of about 30,000.
Bryant said he suspects the tobacco lobby played a role in the veto. Under
the legislation, the expansion of CHIP coverage would have been funded with a
61-cent per pack increase in the federal cigarette tax, raising it to $1 a pack.
Gary Zuckett of the West Virginia-Citizen Action Group called on the state’s
congressional delegation — all of whom voted for the CHIP expansion — to vote to
override Bush’s veto.
“This is too important to allow one man, even if he is president, to block
it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Gov. Joe Manchin announced that CHIP benefits in West Virginia
will continue despite the veto.
CHIP will continue to operate under a congressional continuing resolution
that extends federal funding through mid-November.
“I have joined with other states in writing to the president to urge him to
sign this legislation into law, and am disappointed in his decision to use his
veto power,” Manchin said in a prepared statement.
To contact staff writer Phil Kabler, use e-mail or call 348-1220.
What lawmakers members said
“West Virginia’s congressional delegation has stood shoulder to shoulder to
do what’s right for our children — even in the face of a massive misinformation
campaign orchestrated by the Bush administration. For weeks, the President has
been telling anyone who will listen that our bill spends too much money, and
that it will take kids out of private insurance and enroll them in a massive,
government-run health care program. That’s simply untrue, and he knows it.”
Sen. Jay Rockefeller,
D-W.Va.
“Once again, President Bush has put funding the war in Iraq over funding
critical priorities here at home. He claims he is vetoing the Children’s Health
Insurance Program because America cannot afford health care for our children.
This President’s priorities are completely out of whack. The President vetoes a
bill to fund children’s health needs in the same week he intends to ask Congress
for $190 billion to fund his endless war in Iraq.”
Sen. Robert C. Byrd,
D-W.Va.
“Nearly 30,000 low-income children in West Virginia would have access to
healthcare under this program. This veto is a setback to a bill that received
strong bipartisan support. Now we’re back to square one. We owe West Virginia’s
children the opportunity to receive the healthcare that they need.”
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.
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