"With one stroke of his pen, President Bush has denied health insurance to 3.8 million kids who were due to get it under this bipartisan expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program."
Joe Biden on Monday, October 15th, 2007 in
Biden right on SCHIP
Supporters of legislation to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program want to insure more children and they say the bill vetoed by President Bush would do just that.
Right now, the SCHIP program is budgeted to spend $5 billion each year over the next five years. The legislation President Bush vetoed on Oct. 3, 2007 would add another $35 billion to the pot between the years 2008 and 2012. Families making 200 percent of the federal poverty line would be eligibile, and in some cases states could go beyond that to reach families with even higher incomes. Biden is using the statistic that most Democrats are using about the number of children who would become eligible under the SCHIP expansion. And, it's an estimate with solid backing, the Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan research arm of Congress that calculates the cost of legislation.
Sources: Congressional Budget Office, CBO's Estimate of the Effects on Direct Spending and Revenues of the House Amendments to the Senate Amendments to H.R. 976, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007, Sept. 25, 2007.
Written by: David Baumann
Researched by: Sasha Bartolf, Miranda Blue
Edited by: Scott Montgomery
Articles about this statement:
Keeping it simple, sometimes wrong
Published: Monday, October 15th, 2007
No, we don’t want to take your money. But we are more than willing to listen if you know of any facts or story ideas for the Truth-O-Meter. truthometer@politifact.com
PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly to help you find the truth in the presidential campaign. Every day, reporters and researchers from the Times and CQ will analyze the candidates' speeches, TV ads and interviews and determine whether the claims are accurate. >> More
