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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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Majority
Leader Bill DeWeese |
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House Democrats: Bush comes to Pa. bearing bad news for sick kids
HARRISBURG, Oct. 3 – House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese and Majority Whip Keith McCall said today’s visit to Lancaster County by President George W. Bush means bad news for sick kids and working parents in Pennsylvania.
“The ink was barely dry on the president’s veto of legislation to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program when he boarded Air Force One to visit the heartland of our Commonwealth,” DeWeese said. “He came to Lancaster County to talk about supporting businesses, but how can businesses thrive when working parents are worried about paying medical bills for sick children?”
“Polls say that 75 percent of Americans are in favor of programs like CHIP that give the children of working parents – not welfare recipients – access to basic health insurance and preventative care,” McCall said. “If George W. Bush won’t listen to the will of the people and the will of the Congress, then we’ll just have to take care of things here in Pennsylvania, like when we started America’s first CHIP program in 1992 under Gov. Bob Casey – the program that’s the model for the nation.”
“The president is speaking to a hand-picked audience of fervent supporters," said Rep. Mike Sturla, D-Lancaster, sponsor of a House resolution that urged the federal government to fund CHIP earlier this year. "But I wish he’d take a few minutes and come to the heart of Lancaster and talk to some hard-working parents -- parents of the nearly 7,000 Lancaster County kids covered by CHIP -- and tell them we can't afford to insure our kids. These are the same parents who he will ask to send their children to fight his ill-conceived war in Iraq, but he won't support them now.”
The proposed $35 billion expansion of the S-CHIP program would add 4 million children to the nearly 7 million covered nationwide, and was passed by the U.S. House and Senate before being vetoed by Bush. The primary target of the program is uninsured children in families earning up to double the poverty rate: and annual income of $34,340 for a family of three, or $41,300 for a family of four.
“While we are going to work hard to improve CHIP funding as part of our comprehensive effort to improve health-care access for everyone in Pennsylvania, we are hopeful our federal counterparts will see clearly and vote to overturn this wrong-minded veto,” DeWeese said.
Attention TV assignment desks: a satellite feed featuring Rep. Sturla will be available today at 3 p.m.:
TIME: 15:30 to 15:45 (Eastern)
SATELLITE: AMC - 5 (KU Band - ANALOG)
TRANSPONDER: 13
CHANNEL: 13
DOWNLINK POL: Vertical
DOWNLINK FREQ: 12096 MHz
AUDIO: 6.2 / 6.8
TROUBLE: 717-772-4282
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CONTACT: Tom Andrews 717-783-3797 |