WASHINGTON – President Bush, who recently delivered on his promise to veto Senate’s $35 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, has succeeded in garnering enough Congressional support to squelch an override bid.
The SCHIP reauthorization bill received enough votes in Senate to clinch an override, but fell short of the magic number in the House. Likewise, the House’s Oct. 18 effort to override the veto failed by 13 votes. Again, the 273-156 vote was largely along party lines, and wasn’t the two-thirds majority the primarily Democrat-heavy veto opposition needed.
Bush deemed Congress’ proposed bipartisan expansion bill too close to universal, single-payer healthcare.
Much of Bush’s and Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt’s rhetoric in the SCHIP debate has concerned the aim of the renewal legislation to expand eligibility levels for SCHIP families.
“Congress made a decision to expand eligibility up to $80,000 (income). That’s not the intent of the program,” Bush said in late September. “I believe this is a step towards federalization of healthcare.”
However, the Senate Finance Committee argued that the legislation would not aim to expand eligibility on the federal level. New York is the only state that has announced plans to expand eligibility as high as $83,000 (or 400 percent of the federal poverty line), the committee noted.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an Oct. 15 press release that the administration’s claims regarding the $83,000 eligibility ceiling were “flatly incorrect.”
“Likewise, the Administration’s claims that the Health and Human Services Secretary is powerless to deny New York’s state plan amendment to cover children in families with incomes up to $83,000 are also incorrect,” the release stated.
Leavitt noted that 90 percent of children in families with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty line already have private insurance.