House Unlikely To Override Presidential Veto of SCHIP Expansion Legislation

The House on Wednesday is scheduled to vote on whether to override President Bush's second veto of a bill (HR 3963) that would have expanded SCHIP, but supporters of the legislation are about a dozen votes short of the two-thirds majority needed, CongressDaily reports (Johnson, CongressDaily, 1/22). The legislation would have expanded the program to cover 10 million children and increased spending on the program by $35 billion over five years, funded with a 61-cent-per-pack increase of the federal cigarette tax. It also would have limited coverage to children in families with annual incomes below 300% of the federal poverty level. Bush vetoed another version of the bill in October 2007 (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 12/13/07).

According to the AP/San Francisco Chronicle, Democrats recently have stressed that more families will need to rely on SCHIP coverage this year if unemployment rates increase (Freking, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 1/23). Joint Economic Committee Democrats on Friday released a report that found enrollment in SCHIP and Medicaid increased by 5% to 9% as state unemployment rates increased. According to the report, which was written without input from Republicans, if employment falls as it did after the recession in 2001, between 700,000 and 1.1 million additional children would enroll in SCHIP or Medicaid each year. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who is a member of the committee, said overriding the veto of the SCHIP expansion bill will provide funding for the program to cover the demand brought on by a recession (CongressDaily, 1/22).

According to The Hill, "The attempt to tie SCHIP to the troubled economy may well fail to resonate in time" to give the House Democratic leaders the additional votes needed to override the veto. However, the economy could "reinvigorate SCHIP as a campaign issue heading into November," The Hill reports (Young, The Hill, 1/22). According to CongressDaily, it is "unlikely the SCHIP fight will creep into the economic stimulus proposal," but Democrats and some Republicans are calling for a temporary increase to federal Medicaid matching rates as a way to provide money to the states (CongressDaily, 1/22).

Comments
Nadeam Elshami, a spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said, "In a slowing economy, strengthening SCHIP and providing health care to 10 million children is sound policy, and overriding the president's veto is more critical than ever" (AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 1/23).

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, "During these challenging days, it would be irresponsible to expand the SCHIP program to cover adults, illegal immigrants and those who already have private health insurance, at the expense of the low-income children who need it most" (Wayne, CQ Today, 1/22).

Meanwhile, First Focus President Bruce Lesley noted that a worsening economy could affect SCHIP because funding provided to states to address projected program budget shortfalls could be inaccurate if enrollment spikes (The Hill, 1/23).