Sorry Kids: Bush Vetoes Child Health Insurance Plan

President Bush, in a confrontation with Congress, on Wednesday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance. It was only the fourth veto of Bush's presidency, and one that some Republicans feared could carry steep risks for their party in next year's elections.Ummm, before anyone complains about this bill raising the ceiling to include children in families above the poverty line. Stop and reread the bill. It includes families up to 300% of the poverty line. I'd like to point out that the official poverty line in the US is for a four-person family unit with two children is $20,444 as of the 2006. Employers pay, on average, $3,695 a year for single-person coverage and $9,950 for family coverage (http://finance.comcast.net/personalfinance/view.ht ... That rises to $10,217 for the more popular PPO coverage. They pass 28% of it to families. That is if you can even get insurance through your employer. Individual insurance plans usually have steeper premiums than is charged to companies. Think about this for a minute before you praise how great our health care system is and that these people make too much money for state to help. A family bringing in 40K, even if they get all their taxes back each year, is paying a 25% of their income to the insurance companies. That is sick. It's ridiculous. Our health care system is in desperate need of repair, but at least this bill would have given some less well to do families some much needed help until we can really address the main problem.

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