S-CHIP Vote: Virginia

By: Ron1
Published On: 9/26/2007 1:07:22 AM

Well, the House passed the S-CHIP reauthorization/expansion tonight, at a clip of 265-159, with nine members voting present or not voting (there are 2 vacancies in the House right now).

The bill has already been passed by the Senate, so it now goes to the President for veto. There is a veto-proof majority in the Senate for this bill:

http://www.senate.go...

289 votes are needed in the House for override with only 433 current House members, so 24 more votes are needed. 5 of the 9 non-voters seem likely to vote for override, which brings the total to 270. 8 Democrats voted no for this legislation, including nutbar Dennis Kucinich (who claims that he's voting against because the bill doesn't also cover legal alien children in the program, which is true). The 7 other Dem no votes are 6 of the usual suspects: Boren (OK), Etheridge (NC), Hill (IN), Marshall (GA), McIntyre (NC), and Taylor (MS); and Betty Castor from FL (I wonder if this is the same issue as Kucinich had).

45 Republicans broke ranks, including Reps Tom Davis and Frank Wolf. Jo Ann Davis continues to be not present in Congress due to her health issues, and the VA Crazy Caucus (Cantor, Goode, Drake, Forbes, Goodlatte, in somewhat decreasing order of looniness) all voted 'No,' while Reps Moran, Scott, and Boucher obviously all voted 'Yes.'

Are there 19 potential vote pickups from Republicans and/or the 8 Dems that voted 'No'? Probably not, considering that the 45 Repubs that voted 'Yes' were overwhelmingly from OH, PA, NY, NJ, and MI, and we're really down to the extreme reactionaries in the 159 that voted 'No.'

The southern Republican delegations absolutely hated this bill, with not one Republican in TX, LA, MS, AL, GA, SC, TN, or NC (or, for that matter, in VA south of Woodbridge) voting for this bill, which strikes me as the type of vote that could effectively be used against some of these Reps if the right type of populist were to run against them in '08.

It'll be interesting to see what the final vote tallies are after veto.

Here's the roll call broken down by state:

http://realtime.com/...

Comments



Poverty (Dianne - 9/26/2007 7:41:55 AM)
From the Urban Institute's website on this issue:  "Overall, very few of the children targeted under both bills have incomes above 300 percent of the FPL because so few states currently have or are projected to have eligibility thresholds above 300 percent of the FPL. Moreover, not only is the distribution of new coverage skewed toward lower income children, the distribution of public funds is even more skewed in that direction because premium payments are required for most families with incomes above 200 percent of the FPL in order to enroll in coverage."

2007 HHS Poverty Guidelines Persons in Family or Household
48 Contiguous States and D.C., Alaska Hawaii (last two columns)
1 $10,210  $12,770  $11,750
2 13,690  17,120  15,750
3 17,170  21,470  19,750
4 20,650  25,820  23,750
5 24,130  30,170  27,750
6 27,610  34,520  31,750
7 31,090  38,870  35,750
8 34,570  43,220  39,750
For each additional
person, add  3,480  4,350  4,000

SOURCE:  Federal Register, Vol. 72, No. 15, January 24, 2007, pp. 3147-3148

I think it's time (especially for the campaign trail) that we start making this issue simple for the voters to understand:

How the heck can a family of five, with an income of $24,130 dollars afford health insurance?  Lets see:

That's $2010 a month to "throw away".  Well first you've got to feed the family; say you spend $450 a month ($3/person/day...can you get by on that?).  You've got to put a roof over their head because you probably don't have a car to sleep in; say $1000 a month (remember it's five people we're talking about).  Now how about:  putting clothing on their backs and shoes and socks on the kids feet; paying for transportation to and from work (bus and subway cause it's for sure I can't pay for a car and insurance); paying for electricity, phone, and water utilities, and paying for school supplies for the kids.  Well you get the picture....after food and shelter there's a whooping $560 to pay for these "additional expenses".

Use the numbers or figure out what makes sense to you to make the point that people making this kind of money need help for their kids....and talk about it so the public understands what is at stake here.  These are our children, our future.  We pay to educate them, now can we keep them healthy enough to go to school?

PS  I volunteer in a very poor area of my Virginia county.  I've seen a child whose teeth are so rotten that there's not much to chew with.  A local Baptist charity is now helping out with what resources they have .... it's time the government find the money for our children.



Drake is probably most vulnerable ... (Rob - 9/26/2007 10:11:27 AM)
to this sort of vote.  Hope her '08 opponent hammers her for this.


This is a vote about priorities (Ron1 - 9/26/2007 10:20:45 AM)
I was never comfortable in 2004 when John Kerry employed his "opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them in Cleveland" line, but this vote is in that category. How can any politician say with a straight face that we can't afford to cover poor kids, and at the same time vote for another $200BN appropriation for the war?

For once, this really is all about ideology. The Republican party leadership does not believe in the merits of government-administered health care -- or at least they don't when they're in the minority, after adding the mind-bogglingly expensive Medicare Part D to try and buy votes when they were in charge and throwing money around like they could just print it (which they could). Of course, they invent all kinds of falsities and strawmen to back this argument up, because it has no basis in fact, and I think most people see that these days, especially because the segments of the population most satisfied with their health care are those under Medicare and the VA.

These ads almost write themselves. Stand with GWBush, or stand with poor children. Drake, Goode, and Goodlatte especially need to be hammered on this next year.