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Childrens' Health; Moveon Moves On; Updated
Have you been following the fight to reauthorize and expand the State-Child Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP)? Tuesday, a large majority of Congress members voted for a House-Senate compromise which will make lower cost health insurance available to millions of children who are, at present, without any. UPDATE: Thursday night, the Senate voted for S-CHIP 67-29; greater than two-thirds majority. Every GOP Senator in a tight bid for reelection in 2008 voted for S-CHIP and against Mr. Bush. President Bush, that deplorable politician, has promised a veto.
The problem progressives face is that, even with 45 GOP votes, we are 24 votes away from a veto over-riding two-thirds majority. Peter King and Vito Fossella, perhaps with a wish to avoid political extinction, voted for the bill (They’d voted against earlier versions in the House). Two NYS GOP Congress Members voted with Mr. Bush against Child Health: John "Randy" Kuhl & Thomas Renyolds. A Century Foundation poll shows voters want to spend more to insure more children and oppose a Bush veto.
Moveon.org-Politcal Action* is preparing to fight back, if Mr. Bush vetos. I’ve agreed to help put on a Manhattan Rapid Response Rally at 6PM the day after the Bush veto. We’ve decided to rally at the West Side of Columbus Circle in front of the Time-Warner building. We are still begging for permits. More than 150 others are planned. Please click here to sign-up and help. More suggested action and background post-jump.
The Service Employees International Union plans a Monday Oct. 1, demonstration at the White House to urge Mr. Bush to sign the bill (which has been endorsed by Catholic Bishops, the AARP and the AMA). The Children’s Defense Fund has played a key role in the fight for the expanded S-CHIP and you can learn more from them. In addition they have a page for you to write your Congress members .
For general background on S-Chip click here and for a NY Times editorial setting out the state of play as of Monday, click here.
We should be clear: the bill passed by the House and Senate is a compromise. The original House bill would have recouped significant funds that Mr. Bush has overpaid to private insurers and been a better model for health service planning. I agree with the statement of Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget Policies & Priorities who said:
We are disappointed that the package does not include the courageous Medicare reforms that the House passed, which reined in excessive payments to private insurance companies and thereby extended the program’s solvency, lowered Medicare premiums for most beneficiaries, and financed needed improvements in Medicare, particularly for low-income elderly beneficiaries. These reforms were a model of how to make tough but compassionate choices and set appropriate priorities. The Senate needs to step up to the plate and work with the House to enact such changes later this year.
Are you a glutton for detail? The bill itself is here and the house roll-call vote is here and the Senate here . I've also collected the NY Times coverage here but if you've read this far you can likely do your own searching.
* I was not a fan of the now-famous Moveon ad, but I remain enthusiastic about Moveon's work.
Veto
Most people think that it will be the war that determines what happens in 2008, both with Congressional elections and with the Presidency. I tend to think that health care will be the most important issue, and, as of now, that's a good thing for Democrats.
This particular bill, in addition to being great policy, has the added bonus of being a potentially devastating political defeat for Republicans and Bush.
I have been told by Washington House staffers that there is a very good chance Bush's veto, and he is going to veto it, will be overridden. It's of course not a done deal, there is work that needs to be done, but House dems are confident, and MoveOn is going to push hard, although, I'm not sure how helpful they are going to be convincing the remaining republicans to vote for the override.
Can you imagine how great it would be for Dems to get the first override of Bush's presidency on an issue like providing health care for children? Exciting stuff.
Pelosi on the block
If Nancy Pelosi can't get enough votes to override a Bush veto on this, she should be replaced.
Pelosi started out with H.R. 2, the "Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007." This bill originally contained a special exception for American Samoa. Why? Because they do a lot of tuna fishing and canning there, and the company that runs the operation, StarKist, is based in San Francisco -- Pelosi's district.
Since then, she failed to accomplish anything of note. Lately, the ire of activists has been turned on Harry Reid, who has also failed to lead. But this time the heat is solely on Pelosi.
Remember, the original House vote on SCHIP, taken last February, was 360-45. How did Pelosi lose all those votes in just seven months? The answer is clearly a lack of leadership skills. If she can't get the eight Democrats back, plus 10-16 Republicans (depending on how many House members miss the override vote), she doesn't deserve to keep her leadership position. Even Harry Reid has a veto-proof margin in the Senate!
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A side note: I've read several "mass media" accounts of the vote, and Millstone is the only one to get the numbers right.
The most recent vote was 265-159. There are two vacant House seats, meaning two-thirds of the whole House is 289, hence the 24 needed to assure a veto override. Meanwhile, Congressional Quarterly, for example, which was counting only the 424 votes cast (not counting the one "present"), said that the vote was 19 short of two-thirds, when it was only 18 short.
Apparently, some people can't count past ten with their shoes on.