Congrees, Bush Clash Over Children's Health Insurance

Yes, this is an old story from back in July, but...

If anything looked like a sure thing in the new Congress, it was that lawmakers would renew, and probably expand, the popular, decade-old State Children's Health Insurance Program [SCHIP] before it expires this year.

But the future of the $5 billion-a-year program, which serves 6.6 million children and has long enjoyed bipartisan support, has become mired in an ideological fight over the proper role of government in health care and in more mundane legislative arm-wrestling over how to fund the effort in a tight budget climate.

Key members of the Senate Finance Committee announced a bipartisan deal late last week that would raise the federal excise tax on cigarettes by 61 cents, to $1 a pack, to expand the program by $35 billion over the next five years. That would create total program funding of $60 billion over the period -- enough, lawmakers said, to cover 3.3 million additional kids while keeping the focus on children of the working poor. The committee is expected to vote on the plan as early as this week.

The program, which will expire on Sept. 30, "has helped millions upon millions of low-income, uninsured American kids see doctors when they're sick," Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said in a statement. "This agreement will make sure that even more children get the health care they need."

I bring it up now because it seems Bush has no problem finding all the money he needs to give to Israel for arms.

The United States offered Israel an unprecedented $30 billion military aid package yesterday, bolstering its closest Mideast ally.

Can you say hypocrite? Yeah, I knew you could.