The Nation - Senate OKs a wider child health program - Its 68-31 vote to expand working-poor insurance can trump a Bush veto.
WASHINGTON — Defying President Bush, the Senate on Thursday voted decisively to expand a popular health insurance program for children of the working poor and to more than double tobacco taxes to pay for it.
Senators of both parties banded together in the 68-31 vote for the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- 18 Republicans joined all 48 of the chamber's Democrats who voted and both of its independents. That's one vote more than the 67 needed to override Bush's threatened veto.
Under the Senate plan, smokers would foot the bill for covering 3 million children more than the 6 million already covered: The federal cigarette tax would jump from 39 cents a pack to $1, and the tax would reach $10 for luxury cigars with a wholesale price of $19 or more apiece.
The Senate action followed a House vote Wednesday approving an ambitious package that would cover about 5 million more children but would also make changes to Medicare that many Republicans say are unacceptable, such as cutting payments to managed-care plans. Lawmakers will face a challenge reconciling the bills.
"It's going to be difficult," said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), an author of his chamber's bill. "But we're talking about kids, and that's the dynamic that holds us together."
If congressional negotiators can strike a bipartisan deal, some senior Republicans suggest, the White House may have to back down on its veto threat.
"I hope to be able to talk to the president and just show how common sense dictates not vetoing this," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who worked with Baucus to craft the bill.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who helped create the insurance program in 1997, said: "In the final analysis, I don't think this president will veto this bill."
But the administration has shown no signs of relenting, saying both versions are too expensive and would expand benefits to middle-class families.
Some Democrats say they would welcome a veto battle.
"If the president actually decides to use his veto -- which he has so sparingly used -- to deny health insurance to American children, that is a fight that we should have," said Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), a presidential candidate.
SCHIP, as the program is known, wasn't always a source of political strife. A Republican Congress and a Democratic White House created it 10 years ago as a federal-state partnership. In California, where it is known as Healthy Families, the program insures more than 800,000 children.
