As forewarned, President Bush vetoed attempt #2 by the Democrats to ram through an expansion of the SCHIP program.  No surprise there at all.  He said after attempt #1 that expanding the program, as proposed by the Democrats (and liberals), was too expensive and coverered people that it shouldn't be covering and yet the same people that saw the first veto went back -- changed nearly nothing -- and set themselves up for a second veto.  What is it that they say about people that fail to learn as they keep banging their head into the wall repeatedly?  (I'll leave that to some smart reader to provide details on...)

Something that will be lost in this news, though, is a very important point made by President Bush.  A point made in his speech on the veto:

"This bill does not put poor children first, and it moves our country's health care system in the wrong direction," Mr. Bush said in a statement notifying Congress of his decision. "Ultimately, our nation's goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage, not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage."

Note that bold faced area carefully.  Read what the President is saying here and understand it please.  The man is passing on some serious pearls here.

If we expand SCHIP as the Democrats want to, it will be cracking Pandora's box open that much more, getting the government into the business of providing insurance for that many more people, and once it starts, it won't stop and will never be changed back to it's original intention.

Look at Social Security.  It started as an insurance program and now what is it?  An entitlement program that is the biggest pyramid scheme ever foisted upon the U.S. citizens.  Take money from all, but never let it grow fast enough or well enough to provide for all of the people that are supposed to get it.  Don't needs test for it, just give it to everyone that ever paid in and let them suck the system dry because the money they take out now is in current dollars while the money they paid in was in the scale of 20 - 45 years ago, and doesn't come close to the amount someone really needs for retirement.

Any SANE and reasonable individual that saw what happened with Social Security would be scared out of their wits to think of letting the U.S. government take over the health care programs for all U.S. citizens, or for that matter any more U.S. citizens than are now covered by Medicaid and Medicare (and V.A. and other military programs).  Of course that doesn't stop the bleeting from those that want to argue that Bush is a cold, cruel, heartless S.O.B. that wants to leave little children under- or un-insured when nothing could be further from the truth.

Lest I forget, news clipping for the news on the veto: The Washington Times: Democrats' SCHIP bill gets second Bush veto