We knew it might happen, but it was an occasion to call attention to both the millions of children without affordable access to health care, and the ridiculously pound-foolish GOP strategy to fund the dickens out of the war but complain about a tax on cigarettes to help children. This issue was popular across the ideological spectrum, and Walden deserved to be highlighted as one voting against it.
So who called specifically on Walden--the only member of the Oregon delegation to vote against SCHIP and override the veto, including Gordon Smith--to change his vote? (If you're interested, you can read a proxy for his lame and frankly hypocritical justifications on the bill.)
Few people do as much to provide the numbers and analytical backing for the Oregon progressive movement as Chuck Sheketoff of the Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP). But as an activist he's also not afraid to put the conclusions from those analyses into practice, and advocate for the policies in the real political world.
The pressure at home is having an effect on wavering Republicans who voted against the President on SCHIP and are now being asked to override a veto. Greg Walden is neither wavering nor did he actually vote for SCHIP in the first place, but he is surely cognizant of the impact it's having in other districts, even safe GOP districts for other members. It's a popular program, and it just plain old looks bad not to support it.
Will Greg Walden side with moderate Republicans, help thousands of uninsured children in his district, and vote to override the President’s veto? Or will Greg Walden turn his back on those children and stick with the President?
Help Greg Walden decide. Call his office toll free 800-828-0498.
Tell him that all of America’s children deserve health care and that he should vote to override the veto.
[THE VOTE IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18...]
I was happy to see this LTTE in the Bend Bulletin, calling out Walden and the Bulletin on the SCHIP issue:
Not courageous
In a Sept. 30 editorial, Congressman Walden is praised by The Bulletin for his courage in voting against the bill reauthorizing and expanding SCHIP. Courage doesn't come to my mind for a vote denying additional health insurance coverage to the country's currently uninsured 8 million lower income children. Walden's "courage" is apparently based on his willingness to vote with the minority out of a concern over the additional cost of an expanded SCHIP ($35 billion) and the threat of substituting publicly subsidized insurance for private insurance. The concern about cost speaks more about priorities than courage when compared with the Republican administration's request for $190 billion to fund the 2008 war bill.
Further, voting against an attempt to improve access to health care through greater government involvement doesn't show courage. Rather, it demonstrates, at best, an indifference to securing adequate health care for everyone. Clearly, there are serious problems with our largely privatized health care system as evidenced by health costs nearly double that of every other industrialized country, while 47 million of our citizens don't have health insurance. Apparently, Walden and the editorial board agree with President Bush's statement: "I mean, people have access to health care in America. They can go to the emergency room." I don't call this position a courageous one. More like cruel and callous.
A $1.5 million dollar (and counting) ad campaign directed at the 22 districts where the GOP votes will have to come from to overturn Bush's veto of SCHIP was launched this week by the combined forces of AFL-CIO, AFSCME, SEIU, MoveOn.org Political Action, Americans United for Change, USAction, and TrueMajority Action.
The list of targets includes Oregon's own Greg Walden:
Of course, there are also five House Democrats who need to re-think their priorities, too. No word if Americans United for Change plans to go after them too, but they should.
"The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life-the sick, the needy and the handicapped." -Hubert Humphrey's last speech, November 1, 1977
President George W. Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill underscores the importance of the 2007 Oregon Legislature's move to put Measure 50 on the November 6 ballot as a constitutional amendment.
Few legislators wanted to amend the Oregon Constitution to get to health insurance, but-faced with a moral choice-both chambers acted correctly in resolving to put the needs of Oregon's citizens ahead of partisanship, ideology and plain mean-spiritedness.
Without Measure 50 on the near horizon, many thousands of uninsured and underinsured Oregonians with much to hope for but little to expect would face continued involuntary enrollment in President Bush's Emergency-Room Late-Stage National Health Plan.
Meanwhile, President Bush's monument for posterity, emblem of his failed presidency, the new United States Embassy in Iraq, largest and most expensive embassy in the world, is well behind schedule and over budget.
News broke today that the complex, originally budgeted for $ 592 million, will cost US taxpayers another $144 million to complete.
Those figures do not include the missile defense system it's going to need, and it is important to keep in mind that no one is even guessing at what the embassy's ongoing operating costs are going to be.
Think of the Wapato Jail, super-sized, visible from space, where everyone sprints when on foot, zigging and zagging, trying not to spill the coffee, and you have an image of what this project really is…an artifact already, a blueprint drawn up in those heady days after Shock and Awe, when Coalition troops entered the flower-strewn streets of Baghdad, and the Bush Administration and its neo-con hardliners fantasized a thousand-year legacy.
Oregon lawmakers and Oregon's voters could never hope to cut a budget fine enough to put a dent in the massive outflow of national resources that President Bush pours down the toilet every minute of the day.
The silver-spoon President stated that he vetoed the SCHIP bill because he opposes "government-run health care."
Uninsured Oregonians don't care what it is called or who runs it as much as they care that they have access to it.
According to President Abraham Lincoln, the government Bush is referring to is "of the People, by the People, and for the People…."
Since he serves in the Party of Lincoln, that phrase ought to have some significance in the discussion.
If the government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people," then government-run health care is actually run by the People.
Having never known a moment in life when his health insurance was not provided by either the oil industry, the State of Texas, the federal government or by his government-run Secret Service detail, President Bush is faced with a moral dilemma: To SCHIP or not.
He fails the moral test…but we already knew that was coming.
And the People of Oregon will make their moral choice known on November 6.
When it comes to providing basic health care, Greg Walden thinks that Oregon's kids just aren't worth it. Thanks to George Bush and his blind follower Walden, at least 36,000 children in Oregon will go without healthcare.
As men like Bush and Walden block a move to fund children's healthcare, the lifespan in the continental U.S. drops below Puerto Rico and Bosnia.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - The annual cost of providing healthcare to 10 million children is equivalent to 41 days worth of funding for the war in Iraq. Congressman Greg Walden apparently believes funding the war in Iraq is a good investment of your tax money, but he thinks our children aren't quite worth it.
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., will not vote to override President Bush's veto of a bill that reauthorizes and expands the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
The expansion, funded by an increase in the tobacco tax, passed the House and Senate last week. Two-thirds of the members in each chamber must vote to override a veto. Enough senators support the bill to override the veto.
The question for the bill's supporters are whether enough House members who voted against the bill will switch sides and vote to override the veto. Walden will not be among those representatives. Walden was the only member of the Oregon congressional delegation to vote against the bill.
Walden spokesman Andrew Whelan said today that Walden is "not going to flip his vote."
"He has some pretty serious concerns with the bill," Whelan said. In a statement after it passed the House last week, Walden said he feels strongly that Congress should reauthorize SCHIP, but this legislation "made dramatic and financially unsustainable changes to the current
program."
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