Editorials, Opinion Piece Address Veto Of SCHIP Expansion Bill

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 23 Oct 2007 - 8:00 PDT

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Summaries of several recent editorials and an opinion piece that examine the recent presidential veto of a bill to reauthorize and expand SCHIP and the failed attempt by the House to override the veto appear below.

Editorials

• Birmingham News: The small margin of the failed override vote indicated the importance of the "votes of Alabama's five Republican House members," according to a News editorial. The lawmakers, who voted against the override, decided to "overlook the obvious need of poor children and side with the president on an issue in which he is wrong," the editorial states, adding, "Alabama's congressmen should think hard about what's more important: Protecting the health of children or protecting the veto of a misguided president" (Birmingham News, 10/18).
  
  
• Charlotte Observer: White House press secretary Dana Perino "proudly claimed after Thursday's vote that 'we won this round on SCHIP,'" and her "words echo the shameful gamesmanship at work on this issue," according to an Observer editorial. The editorial states, "It's time to stop playing politics," adding, "The president's advisers say they want to find common ground with Congress on this matter. Given that the vetoed bill was bipartisan, they don't have to look far." The editorial concludes, "We urge them to get to work today" (Charlotte Observer, 10/19).
  
  
• Detroit News: SCHIP "should be reinstated with an appropriate level of funding and focused on the children of the working poor" because the cost of the program, which totaled $922 million in 1999, "has been rising ever since," according to a News editorial. The editorial states, "Now that the U.S. House has failed to override President George W. Bush's veto of its expansion of a child health insurance program, Congress should redraft more affordable legislation and reinstate the program." The editorial adds that the "opportunity now is to retool a useful program at an affordable cost" (Detroit News, 10/19).
  
  
• Louisville Courier-Journal: "Every time you hear Republicans brag about being the party of fiscal restraint and family values, remember what they really mean: They'll lavish money on the machinery of war but won't do what's necessary to make sure that hard-pressed American families can meet basic needs like health care," according to a Courier-Journal editorial. The editorial states, "There is nothing compassionate about this kind of conservatism. It's brutal abroad, and it brutalizes those who are working hard right here at home just to survive on the financial margin" (Louisville Courier-Journal, 10/18).
  
  
• Orlando Sentinel: Congress can continue to fund SCHIP at "current levels until next year's election breaks the logjam," but that "means that nine million American children will continue to go without health insurance until then," which is "unnecessary" and "not right," a Sentinel editorial states. According to the editorial, "Now it's time for leaders to step up and forge a compromise," provided that "much more compromising is even possible" (Orlando Sentinel, 10/19).
  
  
• Santa Fe New Mexican: "The health bill that went to the president for signature was a carefully crafted compromise, a bipartisan approach broadly supported by Republicans and Democrats," according to a New Mexican editorial. Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), who seeks the open Senate seat in New Mexico, should consider "his political future" and "think of the children and decide whether he sides with sick kids or President Bush," adding, "Either way, Pearce will be explaining his vote for months to come" (Santa Fe New Mexican, 10/18).
  
  
• Springfield Republican: The "White House and its allies will trumpet their victory against a rush toward government-run health insurance" because of the failed override vote, according to a Republican editorial. "We can only hope that they get it out of their system relatively quickly so that those on all sides of the issue can get to work on crafting a new bill that the White House can gladly sign into law," the editorial states, adding, "Lawmakers should sit down and work on forging a new bill that can either get the president's signature -- or that can muster the votes to override another veto" (Springfield Republican, 10/18).

Opinion Piece

• Michael Cannon, Dallas Morning News: "SCHIP supporters are using their self-professed compassion for children as a bludgeon to suppress perfectly reasonable questions," Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, writes in a Morning News opinion piece. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) "would have us believe that, if we care about children's health, we must support SCHIP," but that is "little different than the GOP claim, 'If you support the troops, you must support the war,'" Cannon writes, adding, "Both remarks are intended to cut off debate before people start asking crucial questions" (Cannon, Dallas Morning News, 10/18).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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