S-CHIP Goes Down the Tubes Again

For the second time, President Bush has vetoed a major expansion of the S-CHIP children’s health insurance program despite Democratic efforts to rewrite the bill to meet his objections.

The new bill had firmer caps on income eligibility and banned children of illegal immigrants from qualifying.

In vetoing the bill, Bush said that “our nation’s goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage, not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage.”

Democrats dispute that expanding SCHIP to 10 million children would encourage families who have private insurance to dump their health plans in favor of the government program.

With only a little over a week left in the congressional session, it’s not clear whether a veto override vote that is guaranteed to fail will even be scheduled.

More here.