members are requested to take their conversations on the floor and take their se the chair laser for the house and message from the president six the bill does not fit for children first and it moves our country's health care system in the wrong direction ultimately our nation's goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage not to move children who already have private health insurance to cover government coverage as a result i cannot sign this legislation the purpose of the state children's health insurance program as you know was to help low income children whose families were struggling but did not follow five for medicaid to get the health care coverage they you reading some in the congress have sought to spend more on s chip to my budget proposal and respond to tell the congress that i was willing to work with this leadership to find any additional science necessary to put poor children first without raising taxes the leadership in the congress has refused to meet my administration's representative although they claim to have made substantial changes to the legislation h r thirty nine sixty three is essentially identical to the legislation that id  the legislation would still shift as chip away from its original purpose by covering adult it was still unclear coverage of many individuals with income tires in the median income in the united states it would still result in government health care for approximately two million children who already have private health care coverage the new bill like the old bill does not responsibly offset its new and unnecessary spending and is still leaders of the congress on a bipartisan basis to reauthorize the s chip program in a way that puts poor children first moves adults out of a program it for children and does not abandon the bipartisan tradition that marked the original enactment of the program in the interim i call on the congress to extend funding under the current program to ensure no destruction of services to needy children signed george w bush the white house the summer twelfth two thousand and seven members on our side who want to speak hoyer for his leadership on this very important legislation he has worked very hard to try to achieve a level of bipartisanship on this legislation that could override the president's veto in the united states there is a bipartisan majority a substantial bipartisan majority large enough to override a president's veto i hope that we could achieve that in this house too we are not going to take up that vote tonight as has been indicated by mr hoyer  that debate and that vote will take place on january twenty third it's just very interesting to hear the reasons why the president of the united states said veto said veto madam speaker the house is not in order while the president of the united said said the veto to the children of america veto in latin i for bid i for bid the children of america the children of work in families who play by the rules and want the best for their children who are struggling to make ends meet and who need health care and the health care that keeps them in the workforce and off of welfare and off with medicaid madam speaker it's particularly interesting to hear this and when the debate  on the omnibus bill where there's talk of billions hundreds of billions of dollars more for the war in iraq for forty days in iraq we can ensure ten million children in america forty days in iraq ten million children in america this is not an issue this is a value this is an ethic of the american people is a gem of democrats and republicans people  no party affiliation everybody cares about the children of america over eighty percent of the american people support the ethics s chip expansion that we want to do to double the number of children so when the president says we have not met his objections he's moving the goal post in his first veto message he said he's concerned about the fact that people making eighty thousand dollars would be of eligible for s chip not so the only way they could be eligible is if the president of the united states himself gave them a waiver the president has been given waivers to families making three hundred percent of poverty the president himself has given that waiver and now he's complaining about that level of income for families hard working families to receive s chip the president said he's concerned that they're still adults in the program that the democratic response bipartisan strong with forty five republican votes said that the first adults will be phased out the reason some of them are there in the first place is that in order to get the children into the program you but governors had thought that it would be important to bring families into the program and the president of the united states president bush's power see allowed that to happen so he's turning his back on his own policy he's turning his back on these children by saying their families should be off of this shit so when the president says oh he's opposed to the bill because it raises taxes then we get to the heart of the matter bill is paid by an increase in the cigarette tax and this is really why the president is the dough in the bill the president is saying that rather than raise the cigarette tax he would prefer to prevent an additional five million children in our country from getting access to quality health care the president has also said in other comments about this legislation everyone in america has access to health care they can just go to the emergency room probably with one of the most ill informed was stiff competition for that honor but nonetheless probably one of the most ill informed statements that could ever be made by anyone dealing with public policy and access to health care so again i think all the members of congress who voted for this in a very strong bipartisan way in the house in the senate can take great pride in setting a high watermark for what this congress should be doing for children of working families in america i salute mr  stark for their exceptional leadership i also salute this jewel of hood for what he tried to do to bring bipartisan ship to all of this and i commend senator grassley and senator hatch for their courageous leadership in the senate and leading the way to a veto proof majority of democrats and republicans in the united states senate whether you're talking about easter seals or the march of dimes the association of catholic hospitals a it everything alphabetically in between everyone supports s chip except the president of the united states and those in this body who will side with him on this vote what a sad day what a sad day that the president would say rather than children five million children i don't want to raise the cigarette tax what a sad day when we would spend in forty days in iraq what it takes to insure ten million children in america for one year but we are not going to let this veto stand we will act upon it and we will continue to fight the fight until ten million children ad a minimum in america have yield one minute to the distinguished minority leader