Walden Votes Against SCHIP Veto Override
The US House of Representatives failed to override President Bush's veto of an expansion to the State Childrens' Health Insurance Program. After heavy lobbying around the country in support of the bill, the House fell just 13 votes short.
From the Register Guard:
The Democratic-controlled House failed on Thursday to override President Bush's veto of a politically popular children's health bill, and the White House instantly called for compromise talks on a replacement."As long as the bottom line is that 10 million children are covered. That's non-negotiable," responded Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. She pledged that new legislation would be ready within two weeks, and within hours, key lawmakers met to consider changes in the vetoed measure.
The maneuvering followed a 273-156 vote that left supporters 13 short of the two-thirds majority needed to prevail in a bruising veto struggle between congressional Democrats and a politically weakened Republican president.
"We won this round," said White House press secretary Dana Perino, despite an aggressive advertising campaign on the insurance bill by Democratic allies that was aimed at GOP lawmakers.
It's just too bad that the losers of this round are children. Amongst those who voted against the override was Rep. Greg Walden, who attempted to defend his vote:
From KTVZ:
President Bush and other Republicans, including Oregon's Greg Walden, say the bill to expand health insurance for children cost too much.The House failed to override President Bush's veto of the bill.
Walden says it would encourage too many middle-income families to substitute government-subsidized insurance for private insurance.
Walden also says it "makes taxpayer-funded healthcare more accessible for illegal aliens."
Walden says he also opposes the bill's reliance on a tobacco tax increase to pay for the increased number of enrollees.
But Oregon's Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer called the House vote sad.
Blumenauer says for the cost of 41 days in Iraq, 90,000 Oregonian kids could be insured.
Discuss.
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Oct. 18, 2007
Posted in in the news 2007. |
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2:47 p.m.
Oct 18, '07
I'd lay odds that Walden's district probably has a higher percentage of kids as a percentage of the population who will be effected by his idiotic support of Bush's veto.
Couple this with his lock-step support of the rest of Bush agenda, regardless of how it effects the voters in his district and you can paint a pioture of his blind (and extremely dumb) loyalty to a failed administration.
2:48 p.m.
Oct 18, '07
Since BlueOregon's calling bullshit today, here's a couple of red-meat canards that don't stand serious scrutiny. On the first point, is there any evidence these middle-income families would scrap private insurance for this program? (Put another way--is there any evidence they have private insurance to scrap?)
On the second point, this was specifically dealt with in the legislation. It's a flat-out lie: S-CHIP specifically bars illegal immigrants from getting it. I sense more than just ignorance here--is Walden trying to cover his ass by playing a subtly bigoted card in the hopes that poorer constituents won't be too pissed off that he voted against it?
Terrible.
2:49 p.m.
Oct 18, '07
I'd lay odds that Walden's district probably has a higher percentage of kids as a percentage of the population who will be effected by his idiotic support of Bush's veto.
Couple this with his lock-step support of the rest of Bush agenda, regardless of how it effects the voters in his district and you can paint a pioture of his blind (and extremely dumb) loyalty to a failed administration.
4:21 p.m.
Oct 18, '07
"We won this round," said White House press secretary Dana Perino. Ugh. They must be real proud. There are so many names that I am thinking of to describe this woman, but they are really not suitable for civilized discussion on Blue Oregon. Besides, I may run for office some day, and I would not want something like "worthless bitch-half-sister of Coulter" to come back and haunt me. So I'll keep it to myself.
4:54 p.m.
Oct 18, '07
On the second point, this was specifically dealt with in the legislation. It's a flat-out lie: S-CHIP specifically bars illegal immigrants from getting it. I sense more than just ignorance here--is Walden trying to cover his ass by playing a subtly bigoted card in the hopes that poorer constituents won't be too pissed off that he voted against it?
Whether he is that ignorant of a bill that has such a large impact and has had a huge profile, or he is playing the not-so-subtle race card, I feel sorry for his district.
Oct 18, '07
OK, what Democrat is running against Walden in 2008?
I say this vote just made him vulnerable, even in THAT district.
And if not that, then it made him ripe for a fight that will be closer than expected and make the Republicans spend money that would otherwise have gone to defend Gordon Sith. Maybe prevent him from being Governor. He's GOT to take political heat for this, and we're the ones to make it happen!
Dang, I can't remember when I was this mad. Congressmen voting to kick the kids in the teeth! And one of our own did it! Do they have any shame at all?
Oct 18, '07
Damn. And this came after the Governor wrote all the members of our Congressional delegation such a deeply moving letter???
Well, I guess we should be grateful Ted was able to convince Oregon's other four representatives to change their votes... What? They didn't? They voted for it in the first place?
Oh. Never mind.
Oct 18, '07
There are 5k+ kinds in Walden's district that would benefit from the SCHIP program; Walden just kicked those kids into the mud.
Oregon's two BIGGEST problems: Gordon Smith & Greg Walden.
10:30 p.m.
Oct 18, '07
The ones who would drop their own insurance would be those who right now are having to choose between having food and electricity and keeping up their health insurance. I know there were plenty of times I wished we had another option instead of the few hundred bucks we were paying monthly for health insurance. But with my problems, and a young child, we couldn't afford to drop the plan. Even though it meant having very little money for anything else.
And having watched as family members were on the SCHIP plan, I can't see why anyone would want to drop their private insurance and switch unless they had to. They're better than nothing, that's for sure, but they're still not that great of plans. My nephew is so limited in the doctors he can see that the ones available usually have a long waiting line just to get in to see them. More often than not my parents would just take him to their doctor, who would give them a discount and let them make payments. He was lucky enough to have that option as a back-up. Most kids that need SCHIP aren't.
How would Walden like to be a parent who just found out their child is dying because their condition wasn't caught early enough. And it wasn't caught early enough because the child has no health care coverage.
A lack of coverage not only does this mean the child is less likely to see a doctor, but it also means a doctor's office or ER is less likely to run expensive tests. Tests that can catch cancer and other illnesses earlier when there are still treatment options.
Oct 18, '07
On the first point, is there any evidence these middle-income families would scrap private insurance for this program?
Yes, it's called "crowd-out", and it's a very real phenomenon in health policy. It's why most states (including Oregon) have seemingly draconian waiting periods before you can get on SCHIP (e.g., even if you otherwise qualify, your kids have to be without insurance for 6 months before they can enroll). Insurance through work can still cost $200+/month to cover the whole family, and for families making $30,000 - $60,000 a year, that's a heavy burden. They'll quickly drop employer coverage for state coverage if it's an option.
Walden's making a fundamental conservative point here, that it's better for a family to struggle financially and stay off the public dole than it is to accept public assistance and have a little bit extra each month (say, to buy luxuries like winter coats). The way Democrats win over rural voters is by making it absolutely clear to them what Republicans think is good for them.
Oct 19, '07
Walden is detached from reality like most of the far right. They have no idea what it takes to work and raise a family in todays world! This hopefully will be his downfall. For the past 7 years Walden has been Bush's man in congress giving him the free pass to do all the crap he has done. Walden was also part of the republican leadership that had congress working just part time! Bye Greg!
Oct 19, '07
Miles is overly optimistic. The family cost of an employer's provided coverage is usually closer to $300/month or higher. That being said, the real culprits here are Pelosi and Company who went about a cynical bid to increase the size of the program 5 fold.
They refused to negotiate and refused to even attempt a middle ground. They wanted a sound bite campaign issue and now they have it. Too bad the children will now suffer for their politics.
Oct 19, '07
I agree Kurt, the whole plays out like a political attack by Pelosi. She knew it would get vetoed and she figured it would be good politics. Nobody cares about the kids, it is all about trying to make someone look bad.
I love the part where Pelosi says she isn't going to compromise anymore since she has already come down from $100B to $35B. That is like me telling my wife I've already compromised by coming down from a Ferrari to a Porsche and I refuse having to make do with a Lexus!
If Pelosi actually cared about children she would get busy passing a bill that paid a sensible amount for people in need and gave up on a new entitlement program for the middle class.
Oct 19, '07
Kurt Chapman said: They refused to negotiate and refused to even attempt a middle ground. They wanted a sound bite campaign issue and now they have it. Too bad the children will now suffer for their politics.
Pelosi and company may want a sound bite campaign issue but they are not guilty of refusing to negotiate or refusing to attempt a middle ground. The original SCHIP bill passed by the House in August covered 5 million uninsured children through an investment of $50 billion over five years. The bill was fully paid for with a tobacco tax and through curtailing vast overpayments to private plans in Medicare. In working on a compromise with the Senate which had approved a veto-proof bill, the House agreed to scale back coverage of children by one million and invest a smaller amount financed solely through a tobacco tax, dropping the opportunity to make private Medicare plans operate as efficiently as traditional Medicare. The compromise plan also dropped the reasonable House goal of allowing coverage for eligible legal immigrant children and pregnant women before five years of U.S. residency. All these changes were made in deference to the more conservative members of the House. Proof of this is that 44 Republicans then voted for the compromise version in September. The bill that congress ultimately sent to the President, the one he vetoed, was substantially bi-partisan in both chambers.
Unfortunately, the President and Greg Walden have no alternative plan for meaningfully addressing growing uninsurance in our country.
Oct 19, '07
In answer to Jeff's question above: "...is there any evidence these middle-income families would scrap private insurance for this program?"
Yes, an NBER working paper published in January finds that public insurance programs have "crowed-out" private insurance. It suggests that "...for every 100 children who are enrolled in public insurance, 60 children lose private insurance." You can read an abstract of the paper here.
12:56 p.m.
Oct 19, '07
Miles is overly optimistic. The family cost of an employer's provided coverage is usually closer to $300/month or higher.
Well yeah.......The "real cost" is between $1100 and $1500 per month for a family of four.
Different emloyers choose to cover from $0 to $1500, and parse the rest out to the emloyees in deductibles or flat non-coverage.
2:14 p.m.
Oct 19, '07
Kurt,
You have half a point about possible over-reaching on the expansion up the income scale as relates to getting enough votes to pass, but it should also be seen in the context of Bush' rule-making that would cut off huge numbers of children in low-wage working families not eligible for Medicaid even if a renewal of State Children's Health Insurance were made on exactly the existing terms.
Also, do we know that there is a compromise that would have worked? Yeah, I know, hard to prove a negative -- but there's been a lot of negotiating and vote-counting on this go 'round. Does anyone know the results?
I get e-mails from a number of general liberal lobbying/advocacy groups. One of them, TrueMajority, is asking people to ask congress people to send exactly the same bill back to Bush. I haven't.
But it does raise a question -- what sort of compromise might swing enough R "no" votes to override another veto? Would simply lowering maximum % of poverty level for eligibility do it? Could that be combined with language specifying that rule-making cannot restrict eligibility based on % enrollment of some subgroup of the eligible pass (without this, doesn't really matter what the ceiling is.)
Or are the remaining "no"s all hard core ideologues like Walden? Is there any compromise that can work? If there's not, should Kurt's objection be turned around?
Oct 19, '07
On Walden, I guess he has no statewide aspirations and thats why his staff can be dismissive of folks not within his district.
On the bill itself, I don't think the demo's should send the same one back up. They should concede that this bill has fatal flaws directly because we're trying to do the right thing, make sure all children have health care, within a fatally flawed system where health care is largely provided by employers.
So lets get health care for all our kids the right way. Forget SCHIP, Tell Bush he's righ in so far as merely expanding SCHIP makes no sense given our current system of health care and send up a real reform bill. I bet if Bush sees that coming he may be begging for this SCHIP bill back on his desk
2:28 a.m.
Oct 20, '07
Kurt,
I'm trying to figure out if your posting is a criticism or compliment to Pelosi.
The GOP is screaming murder over this veto. The votes to sustain the veto are going to be a tremendously powerful tool in the campaign. And Bush certainly doesn't want the program to fold--his own spokespeople have indicated that a scaled down proposal with an increase, just not one as large at the Democrats sought, will pass.
So let me get this straight: The Dems propose an increase that looks great to the public, paints the GOP into a corner, gets a presidential veto. They then followup with a compromise proposal that gets the President's signature, but the Dems get all the credit for compromising and the GOP gets hammered for marching lockstep with a very unpopular president.
Hmm... Sounds like Pelosi played this one exactly right.
Oct 20, '07
No, I am not praising Pelosi. When she was in the minority as a dem, she railed against republican tactics that were just like this. She is that rare political opportunist who really doesn't care about anything other than sticking it to the other side.
Chris, your question is interesting. I agree that it is impossible to prove a negative, whoever a true compromise along the lines you suggest would probably have been supported by enough bipartisan legislators to make a good bill that increased coverage and protected existing SCHIP recipients.
<h2>Many, including me would still have problems with the funding base (mostly tobacco taxes) but would understand and go along.</h2>