The House voted 260-152 on Jan. 23 to override President Bush’s veto of State Children’s Health Insurance Program expansion legislation (HR 3963), falling 15 votes short of the two-third majority required.
As reported in The New York Times, the legislation would have expanded the program to cover 10 million children and increased spending on the program by $35 billion over five years, funded with an increase of the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents per pack. It also would have limited coverage to children in families with annual incomes below 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Bush vetoed another version of the bill in October 2007.
The vote marks the second failure in three months by House Democrats to override a Bush veto of legislation to expand the program.
