The House last night voted 265-159 to pass legislation that would reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program to the tune of $35 billion over five years.
The bill, which members of the House and Senate revised in sessions last week, is expected to be handed to the Senate later this week. Previously, the Senate passed its own version of SCHIP expansion in a 68-31 vote, enough to ensure an override of President Bush's promised veto.
While a large number of House Republicans voted in favor of the bill yesterday, the House would need 290 supporting votes to override a presidential veto. Bush and Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt last week renewed their promise to veto any effort to expand SCHIP that exceed $5 billion in funding.
SCHIP has been a hotly debated issue as the September 30 expiration date approaches. Presidential candidates are largely divided along party lines on SCHIP reauthorization, with Republican leaders generally supporting the administration's stance that reauthorization efforts in Congress are efforts to usher in a single-payer healthcare system and not intended solely to insure children.
In an interview Monday on National Public Radio, Democratic contender John Edwards discussed the need to pass SCHIP despite the President's threat of a veto. "The President is dead wrong about SCHIP, dead wrong about Medicaid," Edwards said. "I’m not sure exactly what the President is thinking, but my view is that Medicaid and the SCHIP program have been hugely successful. They are not expansive enough, but I think they’ve provided healthcare to low-income families in the case of Medicaid, and to children in the case of SCHIP."
The bill passed by the House also would scale back Bush's restrictions on eligibility increases, potentially allowing more middle-income families to enroll their children in SCHIP. Nearly 10 million children would be covered by SCHIP under the revised program. The $35 billion expansion would be funded by a 39-cent increase on the per-pack federal cigarette tax.