NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday October 3, 2007
Shadegg, McCain continue to deny health care to Arizona kids
of S-CHIP program to insure poor children
Maria Weeg, executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party, condemned President Bush’s veto of legislation that would have renewed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and improve it by expanding coverage for 82,000 low-income children in Arizona.
President Bush’s veto – backed up by the vocal support of Rep. John Shadegg and Sen. John McCain – will prevent those 82,000 uninsured children from having health care.
Shadegg has been one of the most outspoken critics of providing health care to low-income children. He has already called the program a “fraud” on the floor of the U.S. House. “The American people are generous to a fault,” Shadegg said last week. (Cong. Rec. 25 Sept. 2007: H10873)
“John Shadegg should tell the working families who struggle every month to give their kids the medicine they need that this program is a fraud,” Weeg said. “There is no one more vulnerable in our world than children, and to play political games with their health is wrong. No child should have to go without health care.”
SCHIP was supported by bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress because they recognized the moral duty to provide health care to low-income children. It now covers more than 65,000 Arizona children through the KidsCare program. The vote would expand eligibility to insure another 82,000 Arizona children by 2012. There are more than 250,000 uninsured children in Arizona.
Over five years, SCHIP would cost less than what the President spends in four months in Iraq.
Bush’s veto comes despite overwhelming support of the American people for the program. According to recent polls, 86 percent of the American people support reauthorizing SCHIP, with seven in 10 saying they support the Democratic plan to expand the program by $35 billion over five years. [Robert Wood Johnson Foundation release, 8/23/07; Washington Post, 10/2/07]
Shadegg, McCain, Sen. Jon Kyl, Rep. Trent Franks and Rep. Jeff Flake all voted against the program.
Background
- Since 1997, SCHIP has provided millions of low-income children with quality and affordable health care and reduced the number of uninsured children by one-third.
- SCHIP is widely supported by Republican and Democratic governors from across the country, as well as a bipartisan coalition of members of Congress.
- Unless President Bush’s SCHIP veto is overturned:
- More than six million children will lose their health care;
- Millions more will be forced to rely on costly emergency rooms for regular check-ups; and
- Millions of working families will face foreclosure and bankruptcy because of having to finance their children’s health care.