Press Releases
Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami
202-226-7616
12/12/2007
Pelosi on Bush Veto of SCHIP: ‘Democrats Will Not Rest Until 10 Million Children Have Access to Health Care’
“Good afternoon. It
is reported that later today that the President will veto the SCHIP bill. Once again, he will veto the SCHIP bill.
“This is indeed a sad action for him to take, because so
many children in our country need access to quality health care. That is why we
were able to pass with strong bipartisan support, in the House and Senate, with
the veto-proof majority in the Senate, legislation that would cover 10 million
children in
“We worked in a bipartisan manner to bring the first bill to
the floor and the second bill to the floor. Since that time, Mr. Hoyer has been
engaged in negotiations with Republicans in the House trying to meet their
concerns. Mr. Rahm Emanuel was present at the birth of SCHIP in the Clinton
White House, so he has taken a very major interest in this legislation.
“The health of our children is of the highest priority to
the Democrats in the Congress of the
“So I would hope and pray that the President might have a
change of heart at the last minute, but the reality is that the President has
spoken. He has said he will veto the bill.
“Let it be clear that Democrats will not rest until 10
million children in
“We will try to continue the negotiations with our
Republican colleagues, but we will try to introduce legislation immediately
that will cover the shortfall between now and the end of the fiscal year,
September 30, and at the same time we will be working for the bigger bill. We
want to protect the health care of the children who are on SCHIP now, and we’re
working to expand that to the 10 million children.
“Because there are some votes on the floor, I want to
quickly yield to my colleague, Mr. Hoyer, the Democratic Leader, and thank him
for his leadership, for his patience – 20 meetings, I think he had, with
Members and their staff to try to meet their concerns. I thought we had done so
in the second bill we sent to the floor. Clearly more work needs to be done to
convince the Republicans that health care in