Rep. Villarreal Slams Bush For SCHIP Veto
By Vince Leibowitz on Oct 3, 2007 in Texas Legislature ![[Post to Twitter]](/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
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It’s not very often that a Texas legislator actually comes out and slams President Bush for some of his stupid mistakes, so I thought this press release from Mike Villarreal (D-San Antonio) was worthy of our attention:
Today, State Representative Mike Villarreal denounced President Bush’s veto of bipartisan legislation to reauthorize and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP).
“With 1.4 million uninsured children in Texas, our taxpayers, parents, schools, business owners, and most of all our kids simply can’t afford this veto.” According to Voices for Children of San Antonio, at least 7,000 San Antonio children would have received health insurance under the legislation that the President vetoed this morning.
“The Texas Legislature sent a clear message this year that Texas wants to provide health insurance for more children of working parents, not fewer,” stated Rep. Villarreal, who filed legislation this year to expand CHIP, the Texas component of the state-federal S-CHIP partnership.
The bill would have extended coverage beyond the 6.6 million children already covered nationwide to an additional four million children of working parents who earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid but too little to purchase private insurance. The compromise legislation would have continued the program’s reliance on private insurance providers in
48 states. The Urban Institute, a nonpartisan policy research group, reports that the vast majority of participants would have been children in families making less than twice the poverty level, approximately $41,000 for a family of four.“Investing our public dollars in kids provides a high financial return by boosting their success in school and avoiding costly visits to the emergency room – not too mention saving lives and preventing suffering. CHIP in particular is a smart investment in Texas since we receive $2.63 from Washington for every $1.00 the state invests in the program,” noted Rep. Villarreal. “I don’t know anyone who buys the argument that Members of Congress deserve government-backed health insurance but the children of hard-working parents don’t.”
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