Bush vetos children's health care bill

by Brian White (Subscribe to Brian White's posts)
Oct 5th 2007 12:00PM

Categories: Celebs & Entertainment, Nutrition & Supplements

In just the fourth veto of his presidential career, President Bush vetoed legislation this week geared at increasing a popular children's health care program. No surprise there, as Bush's record on social programs for health is pretty well known by most Americans.

But this has to do with children, and by vetoing the bill, Bush risks alienating himself from fellow Republicans, some of whom fear damage to next year's elections as a result.

I'm not sure I would characterize the bill as "cruel and heartless" like many Democrats are calling it, but when it comes to the health care of children, should we leave that up solely to strapped parents across the nation and leave it at that? What do you think here? I do support the idea that cigarettes taxes would have been used to fund the increase, but is that the right thing to do?

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Comments (8)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

marie 10-05-2007 @ 1:05PM

all other provisions of the bill aside, i find it disturbing that the bill defines child as someone between the ages of 0 -25 years.

Chris 10-05-2007 @ 2:13PM

With kids going to college, 25 years seems about the same length of time that you can count them as an dependent. Besides, your kid is in college, you're working two part-time jobs and can't afford health care insurance on top of the rent, the gas, the car, the utilities, and raising your kids...

But no, let's throw the college kid to the curb if he gets sick. Surely that will save the taxpayers money in the long run, instead of getting the kid all the way through college so they can hold down a skilled job for the rest of their life.

Katheryn 10-05-2007 @ 9:13PM

Continuing to let the government take over is turning us into a socialist country. Is that what we want?

CindyPTN 10-06-2007 @ 9:39AM

It's easy to make this issue an emotional outcry for our children. What is missing from the equation are the facts. What does this bill intend to do? What income level is deemed worthy of incorporating into the system? Each State has it's own equation. The bill proposals percentiles above Poverty Line. 300% tends to stick out in the actual legislation which by the way covers a whole slew of "other issues". As mentioned in this article (http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN2039427720070920?pageNumber=2), "the emerging legislation would benefit families earning as much as much as $83,000 a year." Families are not making Health Insurance a priority in their budgets. It should follow right after shelter and food. We enable families to depend upon the Federal Government to pay for our children's health needs. Besides the political gamblings occuring for the upcoming presidential elections, I think the veto was a sound move in regards to health care.

jonathan 10-06-2007 @ 12:09AM

this is just a precursor to universal healthcare which is the worst idea ever.
ie. Canadians have universal healthcare, but they have a long waiting time-3-9 months, versus us, same day!, and since it'll be "free" humans love abusing free things, so anything, no matter how dumb it is, we'll go to the "free" hospitals which elongate the line, causing those who really need the patientcare to get healthcare in another country. that's what quite a few canadians did to save their life! this woman on 20/20 said she had a 6 month waiting list to get a tumor removed, she knew she was going to be dead by then, so she flew down here to the USA to get it removed, that day! conclusion: free = much longer wait, and yes you could be dead by the time its your turn. btw, govt runned programs are incredibly inefficient, likely, it'll cost you more in taxes, then to just pay that insurance/copay.
govt needs to somehow promote competition in healthcare. possible solutions are on that 20/20 show about universal healthcare.

ok... back to the kids... first off, those parents shouldnt have kids if they cant afford to raise one!
so much for being parents if they cant even provide for them. i do love kids btw, but sometimes certain adults should not be allowed to have kids a.k.a. nichole richie, britney spears, and poor adults who cant even afford healthcare. i wonder if they can even afford to feed the kids. allowing this, just promotes humans to produce 5+ kids, b/c it just became affordable! not!
we are all going to get a tax hike if this comes into effect. noway cigarette tax will cover kids btwn 0-25yrs including the illegal aliens. thats BULL!!

Brenda Allen 10-07-2007 @ 8:41AM

Mr. Bush what are you thinking about??? Oh I am sorry I am suppose to call you President Bsh, but you have not seen mch of a president to me while you have been in there. You send all this food and medicine overseas to other countries bt you want to take away the health care of our children here in the USA. What kind of man and a father noless would do that. Oh I forgot you came from money that could afford to have insurance. YOU NEED TO BE INPEACHED BUT THE PROBLEM WITH THAT IS DICK CHENEY IS NO BETTER THAN OU. HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT KNOWING THAT A CHILD MIGHT DIE WITHOUT HEALTHCARE OR A CHILD MIGHT DIE WITHOT FOOD BECAUSE YO ARE SENDIN THE FOOD OVER SEAS. THE BIBLE SAYS CHARITY STARTS AT HOME SO mR. bUSH THINK ABOUT THAT EVERY TIME YOU AND YOR WIFE GET FREE MEDICAL CARE OUR TAXES PAY FOR AND WHEN YO SIT DOWN TO A FANCEY MEAL AT A FANCEY PARTY. mAY GOD bLESS THE USA AND MAYY GOD KNOCK SOME SENSE INTO OUR PRESIDENT. SO LETS START A WORLD PRAYER CHAIN FOR OUR CHILDREN SINCE MR BSH AND MRS BUSH DONT CARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MI AM GLAD WE STILL HAVE FREE SPEECH LEFT WHICH IS GOING OT THE WINDOW FAST TO.

Dean 10-11-2007 @ 9:58AM

I say bravo to Bush for the political courage to veto this end run around the truth: subsidized by scandalously one-sided reporting by the media. This is yet another exploitative use of "it's for the children" demagoguery by those who wish to avoid legitimate debate for socialized health care. This almost unintelligible rant of Brenda's (devoid of a single fact) is all they can muster for a reasoned argument.

EM 10-08-2007 @ 3:39PM

Johnathan -

Canada is a terrible example of a national healthcare system. There are other, better systems in other countries like Switzerland, France, and Germany.

Canada's problem is that ALL the doctors are on the national payroll. It doesn't have to be that way. In the European countries I mentioned, a doctor can choose to work for the government or they can choose to open a private practice. The government takes care of very basic healthcare services while more advanced services are provided by private doctors. The safety net keeps the poor and middle class from entering a downward spiral of sickness and debt; while private hospitals and private insurance companies give high-quality care to those who can afford it.

By the way, if somebody who owned a share in an American automobile company kept saying, "Don't buy import cars! Remember the Yugo?" would you think they were being honest with you? Would you think that the Yugo is representative of all import cars? Well, Canada has the Yugo of national healthcare systems. Just because their's is terrible doesn't mean they're all terrible