House Democrats were unable Thursday to override President Bush’s veto of their pre-election year effort to expand a popular government health insurance program to cover 10 million children.
The bill had bipartisan support, but the 273-156 roll call was 13 votes short of the two-thirds that majority supporters needed to enact the bill into law over Bush’s objections. The bill had passed the Senate with a veto-proof margin.
The State Children’s Health Insurance Program subsidizes health care insurance coverage for about 6 million children at a cost of about $5 billion a year. The vetoed bill would have added 4 million more children, most of them from low-income families, to the program at an added cost of $7 billion annually.
To pay for the increase, the bill would have raised the federal tax on cigarettes from 39 cents to $1 a pack.
The issue had been a source of controversy for Indiana Rep. Baron Hill, D-Ind. He was one of only a handful of Democrats who voted against the act when it first came for a vote prior to the president’s veto, saying Hoosiers would get a 61-cent tobacco tax increase and, in effect, pay significantly more into the program than they will get out. The vote sparked a number of angry letters from constituents. Hill said that just because he voted “no” on this version of this bill did not mean he didn’t support an expansion of the program.
He then switched his position on the issue and despite voting against it the first time, sent a letter to supporters last week saying he would vote to override the president’s veto. In the letter, he still wasn’t happy with the plan but that providing health care for children is “too important to abandon.”
Hill said he fully supports the program and noted that he’d consistently supported it during his previous terms in Congress and voted to reauthorize it through next month.
About 70,000 Indiana children were covered under the plan, according to Indiana Family and Social Services. Figures for Clark and Floyd counties were unavailable.
Floyd County Health Department officials said the program was used very little by patients. Clark Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Mary Jennings said most children in Southern Indiana are treated at Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville rather than at the local county hospitals. Clark County Health Department officials were unavailable for comment.
Forty-four Republicans voted to override Bush’s veto — one fewer than GOP members who voted Sept. 25 to pass the bill. Only two Democrats voted to sustain Bush’s veto, compared with six who had voted against the bill.
Bush, anticipating that his veto would stand, has assigned three top advisers to try to negotiate a new deal with Congress.
Republican opponents said the bill would encourage too many middle-income families to substitute government-subsidized insurance for their private insurance. The bill gives states financial incentives to cover families with incomes up to three times the federal poverty level — $61,950 for a family of four.
Not all public health officials were on board with the plan.
E. Mitchell Roob Jr., Secretary of the Indiana Family and Social Services, noted that the 61 cent increase on the federal cigarette tax called for under the plan would generate approximately $300 million from Indiana smokers. But even if everyone who could participated in the program, the most it could get back from that tax would be $50 million.
The proposal would have made Indiana “a health care donor” state, he said, with a net loss of at least $250 million per year.
Staff writer David Mann contributed to this story
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