Poll Finds 70% of Public Disapproves of President’s Veto of Children’s Health Insurance Program Expansion
[Posted 10/18/07]

The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation this week released results of a poll that found that 2 in 3 Americans disapprove of the President’s decision to veto a bill that would have provided health insurance to an additional 3.5 million children nationwide. The poll was conducted jointly with NPR and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Despite bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, President Bush recently vetoed a bill that would have expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover 10 million poor children.

The expansion would cost an additional $35 billion over five years (for a total of $60 billion), which would be financed by a 61-cent increase in the federal tobacco tax.

The program, which currently provides insurance for 1.1 million children in California and 6.6 million nationwide, expired on September 30. If the program isn’t extended, millions of children could at least temporarily lose their health insurance as early as next month.

The bill passed by a veto-proof 67 to 29 in the Senate, but the 265-to-159 House vote fell short of the two-thirds margin needed to prevent a presidential veto. The House could have overridden the veto with a two-thirds vote, but an attempt this morning to do so fell short, with a 273-to-156 vote.

CMA has over the past few weeks strongly urged House members to override the President’s veto and expand this valuable program that has provided health insurance to millions of California kids over the past decade.

Full results of the survey are available here.

Contact: Elizabeth McNeil, 415/883-3376 or emcneil@cmanet.org.