Bush Supporters in Congress Kill SCHIP… Again

by   |  January 24, 2008

In spite of grim recession forecasts from leading economists like former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and tough times ahead for working families, Pres. Bush’s supporters in Congress have once again denied health care to 10 million children from low-income households. For the second time in three months, a vote to override Pres. Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has failed. According to a recent U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee report, when employment growth slows, demand for SCHIP increases. As The Hill reported:

“[A] recession would create an additional strain on federal and state budgets as more people’s incomes fell to make them eligible for federal assistance through Medicaid and SCHIP. Extrapolating from the events of the recession at the beginning of the decade, the committee projected that as many as 1.1 million children would sign up for Medicaid or SCHIP each year a recession held.”

With the current economic slowdown and the increase in unemployment, more families are facing tough times. As Jeremy Funk of Americans United for Change said:

“There is no better ‘economic stimulus’ they could have offered for the millions of parents who have to ask themselves every time their kids get sick: “Is it bad enough to see a doctor?””

To read more about this latest attack on SCHIP, check out this post at the AFL-CIO blog.