FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Wednesday, January 23, 2008
CONTACT: Debbie Curtis (202) 225-5065

Washington, DC: Today, the House of Representatives attempted to override President Bush’s December veto of the SCHIP bipartisan compromise legislation. The vote failed to garner the two-thirds majority needed with a final vote of 260 to 152. Rep. Stark led the floor debate and voted to override the veto.

Below are Congressman Pete Stark’s remarks on the House Floor during that debate:

“I urge my colleagues to vote to override President Bush’s veto on what is, to my way of looking at it, bipartisan SCHIP legislation. We had 43 Republicans in the House voting with us and 17 Republicans in the other body voting with us -- many of whom participated in the crafting of this compromise.

It is not exactly what the distinguished Ranking Member from Texas asked; it takes people below 300% of poverty -- below fifty odd thousand bucks for a family of three. The adults will be removed from the program in a year, not tomorrow. It makes an effort to reduce crowding out and only citizens and legal residents are eligible and there is some means by which states can enforce that.

Children don’t choose to be born into families that lack health insurance – unlike those of us in Congress who have good health care benefits for our families. We should be able to give the children the healthcare they need to become healthy, productive members of society.

It becomes more urgent now that we are in a recession--perhaps in free fall. We should provide this safety net for families; it probably is the most urgent concern of a parent.

We are going to soon address a bipartisan economic stimulus package. It seems to me that if we can come together on that and deal with tax credits or tax relief and additional food stamps or additional unemployment insurance, then I don’t follow the logic that would say that we shouldn’t deal with young children’s health care needs.

Furthermore, I am advised today by my six-year-old son -- who I must admit started out today with a fever of about 100 so I kept him out of school. He said, “Dad, if we don’t pass this health insurance, they may fire all the Republicans.” I’d hate to see that. I urge my colleagues to vote to override President Bush’s SCHIP veto. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.”