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Jewish groups join fight to override
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World
November 8 • 2007
• 800.875.6621
ancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the
speaker of the U.S. House
of Representatives, prom-
ised she would haunt President Bush
"again and again and again" with
children's health insurance legislation.
Jewish groups have been doing their
best to join the ghostly chorus.
Representatives of Jewish organiza-
tions have been working the phones
the past three weeks in an effort to
line up the 290 votes
needed in the House
to override Bush's
veto of a measure
that would extend
and boost fund-
ing for the State
Children's Health
Insurance Program.
Nancy Pelosi
Twice, however,
Democratic leaders
have fallen short,
despite support
from dozens of
Republicans.
Still, the setbacks
are not deterring
a broad coalition
of Jewish groups
Eric Cantor
who want the pro-
gram renewed and
expanded.
"No Jewish groups I know are
opposed to it," said Hadar Susskind,
the Washington director for the Jewish
Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella
body of national public policy groups
and local Jewish communities across
the country. "I think it's absolutely a
moral issue. It's absolutely unconscio-
nable that we're the richest society in
the history of the world and we're let-
ting children go without health care
S-CHIP, established in 1997 and one
of the signal successes of the Clinton
years, is due for a reauthorization this
year. The progam, aimed at families
that earn too much to qualify for
Medicaid but cannot afford health
insurance, reaches about 5 million to
6 million children.
Democrats want to more than dou-
ble the program's budget, from $30
billion to $65 billion over five years,
with the hope of reaching another 3-4
million children.
Bush wants to add $5 billion over
five years, which at half the health
insurance inflation rate would force
cuts.
The president says some states are
exploiting the program by not limit-
ing it to families that earn twice the
poverty rate — $41,000 annually for
a family of four. A number of states
have raised that ceiling by 50 percent
or 100 percent, saying twice the pov-
erty rate standard is not a realistic cap
in major cities where rents and real
estate prices are high.
Some GOP opponents of the pro-
posed expansion have painted it as
a veiled effort to march the country
toward socialized medicine, a claim
rejected by Democrats and some
Republicans.
The Senate passed the expansion by
a veto-proof 67-39 vote. Among those
voting in favor were the Senate's only
two Jewish Republicans, Arlen Specter
of Pennsylvania and Norm Coleman
of Minnesota.
Such margins underscore the
substantial Republican support the
expansion has, and Pelosi hopes to
chip away at the House's GOP stal-
warts as congressional elections loom
— hence her pledge to "haunt" Bush
the first time the bill passed on Sept.
25. Bush vetoed that bill on Oct. 10.
Several Jewish. Republicans have
come forward to back the Bush veto,
including U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor of
Virginia, the deputy minority whip.
Michael David Epstein, the vice
chairman of the legislative affairs
committee at the Republican Jewish
Coalition, wrote: "Even before the
program's original mission of cover-
ing needy children has been accom-
plished, congressional Democrats pro-
pose to spend S-CHIP funds on adults
— even childless ones."
The JCPA has led the Jewish com-
munity's charge for S-CHIP on Capitol
Hill. The umbrella group sent activ-
ists to meet with Congress members
before the failed Oct. 18 override bid.