WASHINGTON, July 20 (UPI) -- A Senate committee approved a $35 billion expansion to a key children's health insurance program Thursday, despite a threat from President Bush to veto the legislation.
The bill aims to extend medical coverage under the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to some 3.3 million low-income children who currently qualify for government benefits but do not have them.
Supporters praised the bill's 17-4 approval in the Finance Committee as a sign of wide bipartisan support for extending the SCHIP program, which is set to expire Sept. 30. Committee leaders had scaled back their original aim of authorizing $50 billion in new spending in an effort to forge agreement between the parties on a five-year SCHIP plan.
"We exercised discipline and it worked," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., a key negotiator on the bill who had originally favored higher spending for the program. "We didn't do a lot of things we should have done. But then again if we'd done them there would be no underlying bill," he said in an interview.
The bill's 5-year, $35 billion price tag is financed through a 61-cent per-pack increase in federal cigarette taxes, with similar tax increases for other forms of tobacco.
That irritated lawmakers from tobacco-producing states, who argued that the tax put an unfair burden on one class of people -- smokers -- and said it would hurt farmers.
"It would be very unpopular in my state," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Minority Leader.
As many as 9 million U.S. children lack health coverage, a statistic many see as the most urgent sign of the need for reform in the U.S. healthcare system. While almost no one has voiced opposition to renewing the SCHIP program, some Republicans oppose the bill as a large expansion of government-run health care.
Chief among them is President Bush, who issued a veto threat Tuesday before the Finance Committee had officially unveiled its final proposal.
"If Congress continues to insist upon expanding health care through the SCHIP program -- which, by the way, would entail a huge tax increase for the American people -- I'll veto the bill," the president said.
Administration officials have criticized the Senate bill for allowing states to give SCHIP benefits to children in families living at more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
The House is expected to soon unveil an even more generous proposal, spending $50 billion over 5 years, funded with tobacco tax increases along with billions of dollars in cuts to the Medicare Advantage managed care program.
"We are ready to renew our commitment to low income children today, but we cannot agree to a gradual government take-over of healthcare -- and neither will the American people," Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said in a statement Thursday.
The president's threat makes the future of the bill uncertain. House and Senate lawmakers will have to agree on a final, unified proposal before sending it to the White House. President Bush has said he favors a much smaller, $5 billion increase to the program.
Rockefeller described letters from the White House and Leavitt on lawmakers SCHIP proposals as "pretty belligerent."
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, attacked the White House for "undermining" Congressional negotiations over the future of SCHIP. "I don't know what the president could be thinking. I always knew that 'compassionate conservatism' was on life support. It is now dead," he said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called the adinistration's proposal "unrealistic," and said vetoing the bill would perpetuate undesirable aspects of the current SCHIP program.
"I would ask the White House to consider that we passed a $35 billion bill that overcomes a lot of bad policy," Grassley told reporters following the Finance Committee vote. "We're spending $35 billion to cover more kids (and) to have good policy, as opposed to doing nothing, extending bad policy and spending $21 billion in the process."
Committee Democrats said they're optimistic that the administration's stance won't cause Republicans to block the bill once it reaches the floor sometime next week.
"There are many Republicans on this issue who are voting their own conscience; they're going their own way," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. "Six members of this committee voted for this bill, and I expect there will be many more Republicans on the floor who will also vote for the bill. That's why it's clear to me this will not be filibustered."
But not all Republicans are jumping on the SCHIP bandwagon. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., voted against the bill, calling it "Hillarycare through the back door."
"We tried to create a program targeted at low-income children, and it now it's been exploded into what will become government-run, Washington-bureaucratic healthcare," said Lott, the Republican whip.
The bill may not fare as well as Baucus predicted if Lott has his say.
"We won't let it go to conference," he said. "It might eventually, but (if it does) hopefully we can come up with something reasonable."
House leaders say they intend to act on a SCHIP bill before Congress adjourns for its August recess.
