The SCHIP Veto

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Ronald Reagan




That is one reason why the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) (THOMAS) has been vetoed by President George W. Bush.

That, and that no one should be considered a child at 25 years old, and this gross expansion of the SCHIP Program would have us paying for the health care of the children of illegal aliens.



How Your Local Elected Critters Voted:

House Members

NC-05 Virginia Foxx (R) Against Passage
NC-10 Patrick McHenry (R) Against Passage
NC-11 Heath Shuler (D) For Passage

NC Senators
Richard Burr (R) Against
Elizabeth Dole (R) Against


The President stated it best on why he vetoed the bill:

This bill would shift SCHIP away from its original purpose and turn it into a program that would cover children from some families of four earning almost $83,000 a year. In addition, under this bill, government coverage would displace private health insurance for many children. If this bill were enacted, one out of every three children moving onto government coverage would be moving from private coverage. The bill also does not fully fund all its new spending, obscuring the true cost of the bill's expansion of SCHIP, and it raises taxes on working Americans.

Because the Congress has chosen to send me a bill that moves our health care system in the wrong direction, I must veto it. I hope we can now work together to produce a good bill that puts poorer children first, that moves adults out of a program meant for children, and that does not abandon the bipartisan tradition that marked the enactment of SCHIP. Our 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.

Source: White House