House Vote To Expand Children’s Health Insurance Too Weak To Survive Bush Veto

The good news for those who’ve backed expansion of children’s health care coverage is that it passed after a bipartisan vote in the House.

The bad news for them — and Republicans running for re-election, most likely — is that many members of the Republican Party have continued the 2007 trend in following the administration’s wishes so the vote margin means there won’t be enough votes to survive a Presidential veto — which is forthcoming.

So the White House-led Republicans have won the battle. But have Republicans up for re-election lost part of the long range war? CNN reports:

The House voted Tuesday to expand health insurance for children, but the Democratic-led victory may prove short-lived because the margin was too small to override President Bush’s promised veto.

Embarking on a health care debate likely to animate the 2008 elections, the House voted 265-159 to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, by $35 billion over five years.

Bush says he will veto the bill due to its cost, its reliance on a tobacco tax increase and its potential for replacing private insurance with government grants.

SCHIP is a state-federal program that provides coverage for 6.6 million children from families that live above the poverty level but have trouble affording private health insurance. The proposed expansion, backed by most governors and many health-advocacy groups, would add 4 million children to the rolls.

The bill drew support from 45 House Republicans, many of them moderates who do not want to be depicted as indifferent to low-income children’s health needs when they seek re-election next year. But most Republicans, under pressure from the White House and party leaders, sided with Bush, a move that Democrats see as a political blunder.

It hardly matters that the expansion would be expensive or a step toward socialized health care, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, said during the House debate. When lawmakers go home, he said, “the question is, Were you with the kids or were you not?”

To overturn a presidential veto, both chambers of Congress must produce two-thirds majorities. The 159 House votes opposing the SCHIP bill should give Bush enough cushion to sustain his veto, as House leaders expect few members to switch positions

So once again it is indeed a victory for Bush — a “lame duck” President who is not quite lame enough so that a Democratic proposal with significant bipartisan support can to prevail. The Senate is likely to pass the bill by a large margin this week but a Senate vote to override the veto is pointless at this point.

Look for this to become a huge issue in 2008 — even more so if the news media does what are called “plight stories.”

Newspapers and broadcast outlets love to do human interest stories as a “hook” to illustrate a larger problem or issue. Will there be stories of sick kids who get sicker (or die)? Will there be kids denied monies that otherwise would have come to them?

If so, expect widespread play of these stories not due to media partisan bias but because it would be a good, solid, human-interest story.

If that happens, the GOP could find itself with yet another perception problem — and the Democrats seem like they’re counting on that:

Despite the expected veto, many congressional Democrats welcomed the SCHIP debate as a way to open a second political front — in addition to Iraq — on which they feel Bush and his allies are out of step with voters. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Illinois, said the president willingly pours billions of dollars into the war but resists a significant expansion of a health program for modest-income children.

“It’s no surprise the president finds himself isolated,” Emanuel said at a Democratic event that included a Maryland mother who relied on SCHIP coverage when two of her children were badly injured in a car wreck.

One certainty:

A Bush veto will eradicate his 2000 slogan of being a “compassionate conservative” in the eyes of most voters — except those who are his most loyal supporters.

Prediction: The loyal Republicans’ vote and virtually certain Bush veto won’t play well with independent and other swing voters (and some Republican voters) at all.