Physician Barrasso and Enzi vote to deny children health care
Friday, August 3, 2007
From the Wyoming Democratic Party
For immediate release
Aug. 3, 2007
Contact: Bill Luckett
Communications director
307-631-7638
Physician Barrasso and Enzi vote to deny children health care
Democrats urge senators to place Wyoming people's interests ahead of party line
CASPER - Wyoming Democratic Party Chairman John Millin said today that Sens. John Barrasso and Mike Enzi displayed poor judgment this week by voting against the reauthorization and expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which insures about 5,700 children in Wyoming.
Chairman Millin said Barrasso's vote was particularly disturbing, considering that as a physician and former state legislator, Barrasso should know as well as anyone the program's critical role in providing health insurance to thousands of Wyoming's children.
"It is shocking that someone who is a physician would oppose funding health care for children," Chairman Millin said. "We are disappointed that he shows no leadership in his new position and will march in step with the Republican leadership. Wyoming was expecting more out of our newest senator, but obviously we won't get it. He is more concerned with the wants and needs of the Republican leadership in Washington than he is in sick children in Wyoming."
In 2006, when the Wyoming Legislature voted to extend the insurance coverage to many parents of children in the program, Barrasso supported the measure (Senate File 58). Now that he is in the U.S. Senate, however, Barrasso apparently marches to a different tune.
President Bush has threatened to veto the bill, but Chairman Millin urged Barrasso and Enzi to do the right thing for Wyoming's low-income children and join Democrats in supporting the Children's Health Insurance Program increase.
Gov. Dave Freudenthal has expressed "very serious concern" about the program's future, and he urged Wyoming's senators to support reauthorizing the program at a level that will maintain insurance coverage for those who already have it and allow for appropriate expansion.
In a letter to Barrasso and Enzi, Gov. Freudenthal explained that the program - which Wyoming calls KidCare - is one of the most efficient programs in the state to improve children's health and reduce the number of uninsured children.
BACKGROUND
The program provides health insurance for about 5,700 children in Wyoming, and the Congressional Research Service has estimated that it will need a $12.1 billion increase over the next five years just to keep those children insured. However, President Bush wants to add only $5 billion to the program, leaving many low-income Wyoming children without insurance.
Thursday, the Senate voted 68-31 to add $35 billion to the program over the next five years, which would maintain coverage for the 6.6 million low-income children now in the program and provide insurance for 3.2 million more. Barrasso and Enzi, however, voted against it.
In 10 years, the program has reduced the number of low-income children living without health insurance by one-third across the country. President Bush ran on the promise that he would enroll millions more children in the program.
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