Getting It Done

The Senate has been busy. Not only has it passed its own ethics bill, yesterday it passed a bill to expand the funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program, and it did so in grand veto-proof style. From today's NY Times:

The Senate defied President Bush on Thursday and passed a bipartisan bill that would provide health insurance for millions of children in low-income families.

The vote was 68 to 31. The majority was more than enough to overcome the veto repeatedly threatened by Mr. Bush. The White House said the bill “goes too far in federalizing health care.” ...

In the final Senate vote, 18 Republicans and 2 independents joined 48 Democrats in supporting the legislation. All the no votes were cast by Republicans. [Emphasis added]

The Senate bill is more conservative than the House version, which includes some provisions affecting Medicare reimbursement of private insurers and which provides $50 billion in funding over the next five years instead of the $35 billion in the Senate bill. The conference on the bill is likely to be difficult, but Democratic leaders are optimistic an acceptable version can be worked out.

Then it's up to the president, who has promised a veto. While the Senate vote is more than enough to over-ride the veto, the House vote sadly is not, although the conference version could conceivably persuade enough Republicans facing re-election in 2008 to vote for the over-ride.

As the article points out, such an over-ride would have the ironic effect of helping Mr. Bush keep a campaign promise he made at the 2004 GOP National Convention:

“America’s children must have a healthy start in life,” Mr. Bush said then. “In a new term, we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions of poor children who are eligible but not signed up for the government’s health insurance programs. We will not allow a lack of attention, or information, to stand between these children and the health care they need.”

Sweet!