As Democrats stage the ultimate political stunt Thursday with an override vote of President Bush’s SCHIP veto, Republicans are actually planning to do something about saving the children’s health care program.

Sens. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) will join Reps. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), Tom Price (R-Ga.), Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) and Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) to introduce an alternative to the Democrats’ $35-billion expansion. The lawmakers plan an afternoon news conference in the Capitol around the time of the veto vote.

Their alternative, based on a proposal crafted by the Heritage Foundation, consists of three elements:

1) A full reauthorization of SCHIP. The program would continue to cover children in families with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level;

2) A child health care tax credit. Rather than putting more people on a government-run program, the legislation advances tax credits to families with incomes between 200% and 300% of the poverty level; and

3) A health care “federalism” initiative. This piece would complement both the reauthorization and the tax changes in expanding health care coverage, and would encourage even more dramatic health care experimentation at the state level with different approaches to coverage expansion.

Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have supported the idea of a tax credit, and others, such as Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), have offered legislation supporting the “federalism” approach.

Martinez has been working on the plan prior to Bush’s veto. Unfortunately, Democrats have been so intent on politicizing SCHIP that few have considered actually talking to Republicans about about an alternative approach. Now that the Democrats’ intense lobbying appears certain to fail, Republicans hope their approach could sway liberals to come to the table.

Roll Call (big bucks subscription fee) reports Hastert will resign, “effective later this year”. The “highlights”…

Former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is expected to announce Thursday that he is resigning his seat in Congress effective later this year, eventually setting up a special election to succeed him, knowledgeable GOP sources said late Wednesday.

Rumblings have persisted for months that Hastert, who announced this summer that he would not seek re-election in 2008, was unlikely to complete his current term.
[…]
One key issue for Republicans is the timing of a special election, which will be called by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), and whether it might be held in conjunction with the state’s Feb. 5 presidential and Congressional primaries.
[…]
The GOP would be slightly favored to hold the exurban Chicago seat in a regular election, but a special election could be problematic for the GOP because the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has far more money than the National Republican Congressional Committee.
[…]
According to state law, Blagojevich has five days from Hastert’s last day in office to schedule the special election, which must take place within 115 days.

Although the law is clear regarding when special elections must be held state law is vague regarding whether a special primary precede it.

Not sure what “later this year” means…but I’m not sure who will attend the pity party.

I would very much like to see a debate between Michael Cannon and Paul Krugman on the issue of SCHIP. Cannon has the evidence on his side, after all. And quite frankly, it would be nothing short of wonderful if the entire debate went to the issue of health care in general. For whatever reason, conservatives and libertarians have found themselves shut out of the issue of health care while the rest of the political spectrum–especially the left side of it–has been debating how to bring universal coverage to the masses. It is time for conservatives and libertarians to take the issue back for themselves and Cannon provides as good a method as any to do exactly that.

And by the way, if Krugman is not available, we could always have Cannon go up against Nancy Pelosi. That would be . . . um . . . interesting.

I am not the type of person who reads too much in a single off-year election. But this certainly strikes me as being interesting. I didn’t follow the race all that closely and it is entirely possible that it became as close as it was simply because Tsongas may have been a lousy candidate and Ogonowski was an exceptionally good one. But I have to think that in a period where everything seems to be going against Republicans, the Democrats should have racked up their usual impressive margins in the district. Instead, they had to put up with an uncomfortably close margin.

Again, I am not going to make too much of this. I will, however, point out that if a week is a long time in politics, the fact that we will wait over a year before the next President and the composition of the next Congress is determined means that nothing about the next election can be taken for granted.

No matter what the polls, the pundits and the conventional wisdom says, elections are decided by voters and voters are influenced by highly unpredictable events. These remarks are made ad nauseam, but that doesn’t make them any less true. And it certainly doesn’t justify throwing in the towel well in advance of the time the votes are actually cast.

Unfortunately, due to a technical difficulty, I can’t bring you the audio, but yesterday I spoke with Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) and Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) about SCHIP and the AMT.

First, let me say they feel pretty good that the President’s veto is going to be sustained.

Second, let me review their objections. A lot of us, or at least me, have paid attention to the issue, without really knowing all the nuances of it. So, here now, from Congressmen Price and Hensarling, a look at the path toward universal healthcare, incremental Democrat style:

The original bill (a Republican effort) ensured children of the working poor. In other words, it offset or defrayed the costs of healthcare on poor families.

The Democrats, unwilling to keep politics out of the lives of children, decided to move toward universal healthcare. Their bill would ensure children of parents whose household incomes go up to about $62,000.00. Keep in mind that the median household income in this country is $42,000.00.

The bill would start covering adults up to the age of 25 in general.

Likewise, the bill would allow the parents of these kids and adults up to 25 to be covered under SCHIP too. Yeah, you read that right — the State CHILDREN’S Health Insurance Plan would cover adults.

In New York State, the cap would be boosted to upwards of $85,000.00.

States could also expand the cap above the 300% of poverty level.

Both Congressman Price, who is a doctor, and Congressman Hensarling are adamant that this is a bad bill and a better alternative could be offered.

Additionally, the Congressmen discussed the Republican Study Committee’s Alternative Minimum Tax reform proposal. As Congressman Hensarling said, the AMT, which originally only covered a few hundred Americans, now covers hundreds of thousands because the AMT is not indexed for inflation.

The RSC proposal, which unfortunately is not *the* Republican proposal (yet) would restructure the AMT to make sure it stops affecting middle class Americans. Keep your eye out for the proposal and urge your member of Congress to support the RSC plan.

The email forwarded to Protein Wisdom gets the quotes wrong (which is no reflection on Jeff, btw), so I won’t quote it. But let me tell you the gist, which does agree with the video below:

Representative Diane Watson looked a room of progressive Democrats in its collective eye and lied to them about impeachment without turning a hair. It was a stupid lie, too: the flaws in the logic alone were egregious. It was the kind of lie that you tell small children to make them shut up when they’re whining.

And the progressives sat there and took it like small children, too.

Read on.