20071005 County residents rally against SCHIP veto by Meg Bernhardt
County residents rally against SCHIP veto
By Meg Bernhardt , News-Post Staff Originally published October 05, 2007
[…]
… and roughly 30 others rallied Thursday night in downtown Frederick. They protested President Bush's decision to veto a bill that would reauthorize and expand SCHIP and urged U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-6, to support an override of the veto.
The largely Democratic-backed bill would increase spending by $35 billion, to roughly $60 billion, over the next five years. Maryland would receive $178 million in the first year alone.
Following House approval of the bill last week, the Senate voted 67-29 to increase spending from about $5 billion annually to $12 billion annually for the next five years -- double what the president wants. It relies on a 61-cent federal cigarette tax.
Bush vetoed it Wednesday, recommending a $5 billion increase for SCHIP over the next five years, bringing total spending to $30 billion.
Health care advocates have said Bartlett's vote is critical for a House override of the veto. Bartlett, a Republican, voted for the original SCHIP program, but voted against the expansion because it would be a step toward universal health care, he said.
"I support continuing SCHIP health insurance for all children of the working poor, but that is not what this debate is about," Bartlett said in a radio address Thursday. "Democrats are demanding that SCHIP be expanded because they want to force government-controlled, taxpayer-paid health coverage onto middle-class and upper-class families who already have private health care coverage that they themselves control."
[…]
(Tobi) Drabczyk brought her four children to the rally, which was sponsored by Operation Democracy Frederick, a local affiliate of MoveOn.org.
"Our family is on the SCHIP program and we really need this program," she said.
Her husband works a full-time job for less than $40,000 a year, and it would cost between $700 and $1,000 to insure their family through his employer.
Her son, Mitchell Drabczyk, is 13 and has Tourette's syndrome, a neurological disorder. The program is the only way they can get him treated, she said.
"SCHIP is for working families. We just need a little bit of help and SCHIP is that help," she said. "We just need to get all children covered and if an expansion is needed to do that, then we should do it."
Bartlett's stance is becoming a campaign issue. He is up for re-election in 2008.
Republican challenger Joseph T. Krysztoforski was coming from another Frederick event when he saw the rally. He stopped to talk with the pickets and said he would have voted yes on the bipartisan effort.
"I think it's something Roscoe should look carefully at changing his vote," Krysztoforski said.
Democratic opponent Andrew Duck has also criticized Bartlett's vote.
"It was the wrong decision," he said by phone Thursday.
He released a statement on the vote last week.
"We need to make sure all Americans have access to quality health care. This bill is a great start. That we in the wealthiest country in history are even having a debate about whether children deserve health care is appalling. That Roscoe Bartlett says they don't makes him unfit to represent our district," Duck said in the statement.
Bartlett has thanked critics for drawing attention to his vote, saying it was the correct one.
"Only Democrat Congressional leaders could demand that a family earning $82,000 a year could qualify for their expanded SCHIP program and simultaneously call that same family rich enough to force them to pay the AMT, Alternative Minimum Tax," Bartlett said. "It just goes to show that what Democrats really want is to have the government control how to spend the money that American taxpayers earn."
[1] Especially:
MYTH #5: President Bush will be responsible if SCHIP is not reauthorized by September 30.
FACT: Congress is irresponsibly waiting until just before SCHIP expires on September 30 to pass a final bill they know will be vetoed. Democrats have known for months that President Bush would veto a bill like the one they intend to send him.
FACT: One of the Democrats' leaders has even said such a veto would be a "political victory." Members of Congress are putting health coverage for poor children at risk just so they can score political points in Washington.
FACT: President Bush has called on Congress to pass a clean, temporary extension of the current SCHIP program that he can sign by September 30. The President does not believe health coverage for poor children should be held hostage while political ads are being made and new polls are being taken.
FACT: The President has instructed HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt to work with states to mitigate the resulting damage if Congress allows SCHIP to lapse.
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