The lay of the land is that the SCHIP bill will be 'adjusted' and returned for another vote, perhaps as soon as the next few weeks.
Democratic leaders said today that they will send another bill to President Bush within two weeks to expand a health-care plan to 10 million children.
Defiant after failing to override the president's veto of the huge expansion of the program, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Democrats would accept nothing less.
She expressed confidence that the party could gain another 10 to 12 Republican votes that she said would give the measure a veto-proof majority. Nine Republicans changed their position on the veto-override measure and supported Democrats, she said.
Pelosi said Bush is isolated on the issue and that coverage of 10 million children "is not negotiable." She said she would be happy to meet with Bush on the program, but would not back down from that number.
Meanwhile, to better understand (hey, that's why we are here), here are two pieces worth perusing. First, from pollster.com, is a fascinating back and forth between Emory University's Prof. Alan Abramowitz and Gallup's Senior Editor Lydia Saad over Gallup's recent SCHIP poll, which had some slight good news for Bush (maybe) in terms of policy ("Democrats generally preferred, but Bush's counterarguments have support"). Prof. Abramowitz:
Here's the question concerning the income threshold:
As you may know, the Democrats want to allow a family of four earning about $62,000 to qualify for the program. President Bush wants most of the increases to go to families earning less than $41,000. Whose side do you favor?"
The problem, of course, is that the question implies that the Democrats, in contrast to President Bush, do not want most SCHIP funds to go to families earning less than $41,000. But this is not true. In fact, under the legislation passed by Congress, the large majority of SCHIP funds would go to families earning less than $41,000.
The second question is even worse:
How concerned are you that expanding this program would create an incentive for middle class Americans to drop private health insurance for a public program, which some consider to be a step toward socialized medicine? Are you very concerned, somewhat concerned, not too concerned, or not concerned at all?"
Here the respondents are presented with a totally one-sided argument using the loaded term "socialized medicine." It is actually surprising, given this wording, that a substantial proportion of the respondents indicated that they were not concerned.
(Click on the link below to read the entire article)
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