October 19, 2007 – After falling just 13 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override President Bush’s veto of increased funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), House lawmakers are pledging to move forward with a new version of the bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the new bill will contain only minor changes and will ensure that it provides at least 10 million children with health insurance.
“There is no industrialized country in the world that any one respects that does not provide health insurance for its children,” Pelosi said in a statement. “We are the exception. Not a designation to be proud of. But the American people in their wisdom have this, not as an issue, but as a value, as an ethic.”
The bill Bush vetoed would have increased funding for SCHIP by $35 billion over five years. The program currently provides 6.6 million children with health insurance and the additional funding passed by the House and Senate would have provided an additional four million children with health care.
With 9 million children in this country currently without health care, polls have found between 75 to 80 percent of the country support the vetoed bill.
Watch House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s statement on SCHIP just ahead of the effort to override President Bush’s veto.
