Trying again on kids health

A defiant Democratic-controlled Congress voted Thursday to provide health insurance to an additional 4 million lower-income children, and President Bush vowed swiftly to cast his second straight veto on the issue.

The legislation cleared the Senate on a vote of 64-30. It passed the House last week, but supporters were shy of the two-thirds majority needed to override Bush’s threatened veto.

“We’re convinced that the president has undermined an effort to protect children,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said shortly before the vote.

“Congress has known for weeks that the president would veto this bill,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino countered in a statement shortly after the vote. “Now Congress should get back to work on legislation that covers poor children and stop using valuable floor time to make partisan statements.”

In a situation of unusual political complexity, Republicans dictated the decision to pass the legislation speedily. It appeared their goal was to short-circuit attempts by supporters of the bill to reach a compromise that could attract enough votes in the House to override Bush’s veto.

Attempts by Reid to delay final passage of the bill until next week or longer drew objections from the GOP.

“I believe a deal is within reach,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), a participant in meetings with two senior Senate Republicans, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, and several members of the House GOP.

Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), who supported Bush’s first veto and is involved in the discussions, said that “we are pretty close” to an agreement but that several issues remain. For example, she said, the two sides had narrowed their differences on the issue of ensuring maximum coverage of poor children before those in slightly higher-income families can be brought into the program.

Baucus said the negotiations would resume next week.

The veto-threatened measure would add an estimated 4 million beneficiaries to an existing program that provides coverage for children from families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance. The program currently provides benefits to roughly 6 million children.

At a cost of $35 billion, the bill would be paid for through an increase in tobacco taxes, including a 61-cent rise on a pack of cigarettes.

Bush vetoed an earlier children’s health bill this fall, and Republican critics said it failed to give enough priority to poor children, attempted to expand government-run healthcare and did not take sufficient steps to prevent the children of illegal immigrants from receiving benefits.

The vote, 273-156, was 13 short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.

In response, Democrats launched a replacement measure, incorporating changes they said were designed to meet Republican objections to their first offering.

But Bush dismissed those efforts this week, telling a business audience, “If Congress sends this bill back to me, I’m going to veto it again.”

He predicted his second veto would be upheld.

A day earlier, the president told House Republicans in a private meeting that he would veto any measure that raised tobacco taxes or any other taxes.

Polls show that the children’s health issue has widespread support, and Democrats have moved quickly to take advantage of that with commercials attacking Republicans who opposed the legislation.

The result has been a growing nervousness among House Republicans looking ahead to the 2008 elections. Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, joined the compromise negotiations in recent days.