Second veto for Children’s Health Bill

President Bush has made it clear that he is not in for the expansion of Children care program for the time being. This has angered the Democrats who are in favor of the bill.

Children's health-care program does not seem to be on the agenda of President Bush as he again vetoed the bill for expanding the program. The bill was pushed forward by the Democrats but was also supported by many Republicans. This action by the President of using his veto power to reject the bill has started a serious fight in the Congress.

"Because the Congress has chosen to send me an essentially identical bill that has the same problems as the flawed bill I previously vetoed, I must veto this legislation too," President Bush wrote in a message to the House of Representatives.

Earlier in October the President had vetoed the previous version of the bill saying that it had some flaws which need to be mended. The Congress was quick in doing the modifications but it still does not seem to have satisfied White House concerns.

"I continue to stand ready to work with the leaders of the Congress, on a bipartisan basis, to reauthorize the SCHIP program," Bush said in his message.

The bill is aimed at providing health insurance to about 10 million children in low and moderate-income families. Revenues for this will be generated by increasing the taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. The proposal was to increase the tax from 61 cents to $1 per pack of cigarettes.

Democrats have been raising voice on the expenditure of the Bush Government on the health care issues. According to them the main aim of the bill is to provide help to the people who can’t afford the private health insurance but are also earn above the limit for the Medicaid health care program for the poor.

"This is indeed a sad action for him to take, because so many children in our country need access to quality health care," said Pelosi, a California Democrat who is also the House of Representatives Speaker Nancy.

But Bush said the bill is not concerned with helping the poor people and in fact takes the country’s Health care system in a wrong direction. The funding will take the grants to the poor to a level that was never intended in our Health care system, he added.

The bill would have provided $60 billion in funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) over five years as compared to the current $25 billion five-year grant to this program. Democrats think that the proposed $5 billion increase is not enough.

In the meantime, Pelosi said Democrats will not override the veto right of the President but will surely vote to keep the future of 6 million children safe.