Children's Insurance Bill Fails Democrats Unable to Override Veto

Oct 19, 09:49 AM

Current Headlines: By Brian Knowlton and Robert Pear

Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.

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A Democratic-led effort to override President George W. Bush's veto of a popular children's health insurance program fell short Thursday, underscoring the power that even a weakened president still wields against an opposition party holding only a narrow majority.

The vote was 273 to 156, 16 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, known widely as S-Chip.

Democrats vowed to pass a new bill to protect 10 million poor children, although it was unclear whether it would meet White House demands that it contain spending without extending subsidized coverage to some adults and middle-class children.

Both parties immediately sought to impart their own spin on the outcome.

Representative John Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, said that those opposing the bill were neglecting the needs of "the most vulnerable people in our society."

But Representative John Boehner of Ohio, the minority leader, said that Republicans were hoping for compromise talks on a new version of the bill.

"The American people are tired of all the political games," he said. "They want us to find some way to work together."

Regardless, in strictly political terms, the vote represented another somewhat surprising legislative victory for an unpopular president who has been prosecuting a deeply unpopular war.

Bush has lately forced Democrats to compromise on domestic surveillance and to drop efforts to curb the National Security Agency's eavesdropping powers; before that, he survived repeated Democratic attempts to constrain his ability to conduct the Iraq war.

At the same time, the House speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi, has had setbacks. Before falling short on the children's insurance bill override, she had to retreat at least temporarily from bringing to the House floor a resolution condemning as genocide the mass killings of Armenians at Turkish hands in the early 20th century.

So despite Bush's retreat from core domestic initiatives - immigration overhaul, revamping of Social Security and remaking the tax code - his artful use of veto power, and Republicans' ability to twist arms on key issues, has saved him from legislative irrelevance.

Indeed, he said Wednesday that his veto pen was "one way to ensure that I am relevant." He added that he wanted greater cooperation with Congress, but at the same time he criticized it in scathing terms for not moving more quickly on a range of issues. Still, he named three administration officials to "seek common ground" with Congress on the health insurance bill.

Democratic leaders, pointing to public support for the program, said they saw no urgent need to negotiate the central elements of the proposal. Pelosi said Democrats would not compromise on their goal of providing health insurance for 6.6 million children already on the program's rolls and nearly 4 million who are uninsured.

Many Republicans argue that the vetoed bill would allow coverage of children from middle- and upper-income families and of adults and some illegal immigrants. Democrats reject such criticism, but say they will consider revising the bill to make its restrictions clearer.

"We will type it in bigger, bolder letters, but we will not compromise on the goal of insuring 10 million children," said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

If Bush vetoes a second version of the bill, Democrats say they will send him a third just before Election Day 2008.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said earlier that he might be willing to "tweak something" in the bill to help the president "save face" - but not to negotiate with the White House if Congress upheld the presidential veto.

The bill vetoed by Bush had been approved in the House 265 to 159, with considerable Republican support but still well short of a two-thirds majority. In the Senate, which passed the bill 67 to 29, supporters already have a two-thirds majority. Eighteen Republicans in the Senate and 45 in the House voted for the bill that Bush vetoed.

In the House vote Thursday, 44 Republicans joined nearly all Democrats in voting to override, underscoring the Democrats' failure to entice additional Republican support.

A CBS News poll released Wednesday found overwhelming support for expansion of the program to include some middle-class uninsured children.

Eighty-one percent of respondents, including 70 percent of Republicans, supported expanding the program. The telephone poll of 1,282 adults had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

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