Children in the balance

Oct 4th 2007 | AUSTIN
From Economist.com

Why did George Bush veto a popular health-care bill?

AFP

GEORGE BUSH has some fight left in him and he has chosen a thankless battle. On Wednesday October 3rd the president vetoed legislation that would have reauthorised and expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides health-care insurance to more than 6m poor children.

It is a popular programme and the bill passed the House and Senate with robust bipartisan majorities. So Mr Bush’s veto—it is only his fourth—has done nothing for his public image. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, called the veto “heartless” and asked how the president sleeps at night. “It is incomprehensible,” said Ted Kennedy, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts. Some usually reliable allies were less melodramatic but still critical. Orrin Hatch, a conservative Republican senator from Utah, suggested that the president is receiving some bad advice.

The programme was launched in 1997 as an effort to provide health-care insurance to families whose incomes put them at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. Such families might not be able to afford private insurance and nor would they qualify for Medicaid, which provides health-care insurance to the poorest. States design their SCHIP programmes to their own specifications, but the federal government provides roughly 70% of the funds.....

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