House Democrats today resurrected the debate over legislation to reauthorize and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as S-CHIP. The chamber passed the bill, dubbed “S-CHIP 2.O,” by a vote of 265-142.
President Bushvetoed an earlier bill on the subject and the House failed to override his veto. House Republicans largely opposed the bill and forced numerous procedural votes to stall passage.
Here are video excerpts of the debate from: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio; Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas; Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.; and Hilda Solis, D-Calif.
While representing Iowa in the House, Republican Jim Nussle earned a reputation as a budget expert, eventually rising to serve as chairman of the House Budget Committee. Now he is the director of the White House Office and Management and Budget and is making the case for the Bush administration’s budget policies.
He discussed those policies, including the veto of legislation to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, in a telephone interview with the National Association of Manufacturers. The House this week fell short of the votes necessary to override Bush’s veto.
“Congress has taken a good idea [in S-CHIP] and expanded it, basically, as a way to get national health care and that’s just not acceptable,” Nussle said. “And the president is willing to spend more; he did that in his budget. A 20 percent increase is pretty healthy in just about anybody’s budget. And if more money is necessary, that’s not the issue. This issue is here: Let’s make sure that we are delivering a quality product to kids who don’t have any other place to turn.”
The 12-year-old boy who delivered the Democrats’ weekly radio address Sept. 29 has become the flashpoint in the debate over the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Democrats tapped Graeme Frost of Baltimore to make the case for the S-CHIP program because he and his sister personally benefited from it after an accident that left him in a coma for a week. “I don’t know why President Bush wants to stop kids who really need help from getting CHIP,” Frost said days before Bush vetoed legislation to expand S-CHIP.
Conservatives immediately criticized Democrats for using a child to try to score cheap political points, and bloggers at The Corner, Free Republic and InsureBlog have been digging into Frost’s story and his family history. Here’s what they have reported:
The Frost children were students at an exclusive private school before the accident, and Graeme Frost still is.
The family owns a small woodworking business and the property where it is located.
The Frosts live in an improved home of more than 3,000 square feet.
And the mother works for a medical publisher that apparently doesn’t offer health insurance — but they could have purchased insurance on their own for much less than they are telling reporters smitten by a human-interest story.
As the narrative of the not-so-poor Frosts has gelled in online conservative quarters over the weekend, liberal bloggers have begun to strike back at the “scary” right for picking on a child and “stalking the family.”
Think Progress is calling it “a baseless smear campaign” that has distorted the facts about the Frosts. “Right-wing bloggers have been harassing the Frosts, calling their home numerous times to get information about their private lives. Compassionate conservatism indeed.”
The response from the right:
Michelle Malkin: “When a family and Democrat political leaders drag a child down to Washington at 6 in the morning to read a script written by Senate Democrat staffers on a crusade to overturn a presidential veto, someone might have questions about the family’s claims. The newspapers don’t want to do their jobs. The vacuum is being filled.”
Mark Steyn at The Corner: “Sorry, no sale. The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a seventh-grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man’s job, then the boy is fair game. … And anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy, you’re welcome to clobber him, too.”
As promised, President Bush this week vetoed legislation that would expand a program that provides health insurance to poor children. He defended the veto in his weekly radio address today, arguing that Congress sent him a “deeply flawed bill” that would move beyond the original purpose of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
“Under their plan, one out of every three children who moves onto government coverage would drop private insurance,” Bush said. “In other words, millions of children would move out of private health insurance and onto a government program. Congress’s plan would also transform a program for poor children into one that covers children in some households with incomes up to $83,000.
“Congress’ plan would raise taxes on working people. And Congress’ plan does not even fully fund all the new spending. If their plan becomes law, five years from now Congress would have to choose between throwing people off SCHIP — or raising taxes a second time.”
Democrats also revisited the S-CHIP debate in their radio address. A week after letting a 12-year-old make the case for the legislation, Democrats gave the microphone to a more traditional spokesman: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
Hoyer said Bush is wrong to argue that the bill would lead to a “government takeover of health insurance”; instead, he said it would give 10 million low-income children the health care they need. Hoyer noted that the legislation has bipartisan support and that House Democrats will work to persuade a handful of Republicans to change their S-CHIP votes in order to override Bush’s veto.
“[T]oday, the only thing standing between millions of American children and the health insurance they need and deserve is one person,” Hoyer said. “The president is saying ‘no’ to these children he promised to help. This is a defining moment for this Congress.”
Americans United for Change mobilized in 2005 to fight the Social Security overhaul backed by President Bush and expanded its interests to the Iraq war and other issues last year. Its latest mission is to win an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program — an idea that Bush opposes.
The coalition recently rallied outside the White House in hopes of convincing Bush to change his mind about vetoing legislation to expand S-CHIP. “Where has compassionate conservatism gone?” Brad Woodhouse of Americans United asked in noting that Bush vowed to veto the S-CHIP bill during the same week that he proposed another burst of military spending. “It left us a long, long time ago. It certainly doesn’t reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
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