Democrats Build Plan to Override Health Bill Veto

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/washington/29health.html
By ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: September 29, 2007

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — Democrats and their allies mapped out a strategy on Friday that they hoped would enable them to override President Bush’s expected veto of a bipartisan bill providing health insurance for 10 million children, most of them in low-income families.

Democratic leaders said they would highlight the contrast between the president’s request for large sums of money for the Iraq war and his opposition to smaller sums for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as Schip.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said, “It’s ironic that in the very same week that the president says he’s going to veto the bill because we can’t afford it, he is asking, what, for $45 billion more over and above his initial request for the war in Iraq, money that we know is being spent without accountability, without a plan for how we can leave Iraq.”

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said, “This is all a matter of priorities: the cost of Iraq, $333 million a day; the cost of Schip, $19 million a day.”

The campaign for the legislation will also include grass-roots advocacy and political advertisements, and will initially focus on about 15 House Republicans who voted against the bill. Supporters of the legislation hope to persuade them to switch.

But House Republican leaders said they felt sure they could sustain the veto, and two lawmakers on the Democrats’ list said that they would support Mr. Bush.

The bill passed this week by the House and the Senate would provide $60 billion for the program over the next five years, up $35 billion from the current level of spending. On Wednesday, the administration said it would seek $42 billion more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing its total request to nearly $190 billion for the 2008 fiscal year, which begins Monday.

In an interview on Friday, the House Republican whip, Roy Blunt of Missouri, said there was “a 100 percent probability” that the House would sustain the president’s veto.

But, Mr. Blunt said, the coincidental timing of the vote on the child health bill and the request for money in Iraq “was not helpful.”

The White House, on the defensive, is trying to bolster Republicans who fear they might be penalized by voters if they side with the president.

Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said Friday, “It is preposterous for people to suggest that the president of the United States doesn’t care about children, that he wants children to suffer.”

Ms. Perino said the president had a policy difference with Democrats in Congress because he did not want “additional government-run health care, socialized-type medicine.”

Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who helped write the bill, said he would reach out to House Republicans and urge them to override the veto.

“This bill is not socialized medicine,” Mr. Grassley said. “Screaming ‘socialized medicine’ is like shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. It is intended to cause hysteria that diverts people from reading the bill, looking at the facts.”

The battle will be fought in the House, where the child health bill was approved on Tuesday by a vote of 265 to 159 — well short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a veto.

Ms. Pelosi called Mr. Bush on Friday and said she was praying he would sign the bill.

But Mr. Blunt said: “I bet she’s praying for him not to sign it. The bill is all about politics. It’s pretty good politics for the Democrats.”

Still, Democrats face an uphill fight to persuade Republicans to change their votes. Supporters would need 289 yes votes to enact the bill over the president’s objections if all the members were voting.

The House now has 433 members and two vacant seats.

One of the Republicans singled out for special attention by Democrats was Representative Judy Biggert, from a suburban Chicago district. She was one of 16 Republicans who signed a letter to the speaker last week, urging her to take up the Senate version of the child health bill.

The compromise closely followed the Senate version, but Mrs. Biggert voted against it, saying, “It would push Americans one step closer to socialized medicine.”

In an interview on Friday, Mrs. Biggert said she would vote to sustain the veto.

Democrats said they would also focus their efforts on Republicans like Representatives Timothy V. Johnson of Illinois, John R. Kuhl Jr. of New York, Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan and H. James Saxton of New Jersey.

Mr. McCotter said he was a big supporter of the child health program, but would vote to uphold the president’s veto, even if critics ran television advertisements against him.

Under the bill, the federal excise tax on cigarettes would be increased to $1 a pack, from the current 39 cents.

“I vowed never to raise taxes on anybody, no matter how disliked they might be,” Mr. McCotter said in an interview. He said he would rather be voted out of office than go back on his promises to constituents.

Republican senators who worked on the compromise bill, like Mr. Grassley and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, said they had tried in vain to persuade White House officials to join the negotiations.

Ms. Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said that after vetoing the bill, Mr. Bush would like to “sit down and come to a compromise” with Congress.

The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said the president should not hold his breath waiting for such a deal. Democrats, he said, have already made many concessions to keep the support of Senate Republicans.