Veto Sinks SCHIP

As promised, President Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill. He wasn't against the bill in general, but rather a few specific details of it:
- it required a tax increase
- it was too big of an expansion, the first step in government-run universal health care
- it lost focus on low-income children by covering adults and families up to 400% of the poverty level (making $80,000+ per year)

He said he was open to a compromise. Congress has a veto-proof majority in the Senate, but not the House, so that means Congress may have to work with Bush to get this passed.

Hopefully, they'll come up with something reasonable.

On a related note, a memo from 1993 has been made public stating that Hillary Clinton saw federal health coverage of children as a "precursor" to universal coverage. If there was any doubt before about SCHIP starting us down the universal road, it is gone now. Another reason it was good for Bush to veto it.

There's my two cents.