Cardwell Scolds Chambliss For Vote Against SCHIP Bill

(8/6/07) Democrat Dale Cardwell fired a shot at Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss Monday for a vote last week against the SCHIP bill, calling it an example of why he considers Chambliss a part of the problem in Washington.

Chambliss and Georgia’s other U.S. senator, Johnny Isakson, both voted against the bill, which passed 68-31 but faces a veto threat from President Bush.

Both senators said they support reauthorization of the children’s health care program, which includes funding for Georgia’s PeachCare. But they said the Senate bill broadens the program too much.

“The bill passed by the Senate not only expands coverage for adults and therefore shifts the focus, but it creates a new middle-class entitlement program that is paid for through budget gimmicks and massive tax increases,” Chambliss said in a press release last week.

“The Senate bill also removes more than 2 million children from private health insurance and places them into the government-run healthcare program, and that is simply the wrong approach,” he said.

Georgia’s two senators supported an alternative proposal by Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., that would have expanded SCHIP by $9.5 billion (compared to $35 billion in the measure that passed.) But that proposal was voted down.

Cardwell said in his own press release Monday:

“Saxby Chambliss said this bill is flawed, but he’s been in Washington for almost 13 years and we are no closer to solving our health care crisis than when he got there. If this bill is not something he can support, what has he done during his years in Congress to fight for a change that would make health care more affordable and available to all Americans?”

The former Atlanta TV newsman asserted that Chambliss supports the status quo in American health care in part because of “the hundreds of thousands of dollars he’s taken from special interests who are fighting against health care reform.”