By Crystal D. Swann
October 8, 2007

President Bush’s veto of the $35 billion bipartisan bill reauthorizing the successful Children’s Health Insurance Program, despite overwhelming public support and bipartisan pressure, has created what many are calling a defining moment in Congressional history. In vetoing the bill, President Bush remarked that the legislation “would move health care in this country in the wrong direction… and goes too far towards federalizing healthcare...” While the legislation passed the Senate last week by a veto-proof 67-29, the House vote was 265-159 – 19 votes shy of the two-thirds majority required for an override. The House override vote is scheduled for October 18, giving advocates and supporters two weeks to convince unsupportive Congressional members to change their votes.

As passed, the bill would provide health coverage for an additional four million low income children in the United States. These are children in working families whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private health insurance. Currently 6.6 million children are being covered SCHIP. The passage of this bill would mean that over ten million children could receive needed health care coverage.

In response to the President’s veto, Conference of Mayors President Trenton Mayor Douglas H. Palmer said, “It makes no economic sense to deprive low-income children of medical care when they need it—to consign them to the emergency room for illnesses that could have been prevented. As a public official charged with the health of my community, as a parent, and as a citizen, I feel that from a public policy perspective – and from a moral one– this veto is an embarrassment to our nation.” For more on Palmer’s statement, view USCM press release on page 14.

Many members of Congress who worked tirelessly on the bipartisan compromise expressed disappointment in the Administration’s veto decision. Senator Charles E. Grassley, a primary author of the compromise bill, and a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, stated, “I’m very disappointed…and I intended to use [reason], particularly to overcome either the wholly wrong or intellectually dishonest arguments that were used against [this bill].”

On the other side of the aisle, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reaffirmed her committed to passing a strong bipartisan children’s health bill. “Despite the President’s veto, we will continue to work with a bipartisan majority in Congress…to increase support for SCHIP in the House so we can override the veto and provide ten million children the health coverage they need and deserve,” Pelosi said.

With the House override vote scheduled for October 18, The Conference of Mayors is asking its bipartisan membership to contact their congressional delegations in an effort to garner the 19 votes needed to override the veto. The reauthorization and expansion of the children’s health insurance program is a key point in the Mayors Agenda to Address Poverty, Work and Opportunity and in the Mayors 10-Point Plan: Strong Families for a Strong America.