Tell President Bush to sign amended SCHIP bill

U.S. PIRG is asking everyone to send a message to President Bush, that poor children's health is more important than banning more tobacco taxes. SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program has, after a couple of rounds of legislation, mostly bipartisan support-- most Democrats and Republicans in Congress support it; Bush doesn't want to further tax the tobbaco industry to pay for it. Here is what U.S. PIRG says; if you agree, please take action at this webpage:

Background
Just two months ago, U.S. PIRG worked with Congress to pass an important prescription drug safety law. It requires drug companies to tell us the whole truth about the safety of their drugs, and it requires the FDA to crack down on drug companies that break the law by putting out misleading ads or failing to finish safety studies.We stood up to the pharmaceutical industry and won. And now we've turned our attention to children's health insurance.Millions of American kids lack health insurance. Without it, they don't get the preventive care they need, and small problems turn into big health problems. If their health problems grow worse, uninsured kids wind up in emergency rooms, and those costs are borne by those with insurance.The good news is that Congress has a plan to make health care more efficient by covering more uninsured American kids.The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) currently provides health coverage to 6 million uninsured kids. Congress passed a bill to reauthorize the program and expand it to cover 10 million uninsured American kids. The bill provided new funding for the states, which was paid for with a tax on big tobacco, the culprit of many health-related woes. Expanding this program has bipartisan support in Congress and bipartisan support from governors across the U.S.President Bush vetoed the children's health insurance bill, stating that he was worried that kids who weren't poor would be covered through the program. Since then, Congress has amended the bill to restrict eligibility to only those uninsured kids from families earning 300% of federal poverty or less.The amended bill will go back to President Bush, and we will learn whether his stated concerns were legitimate, or whether he was merely siding with the tobacco industry, which is opposed to the measure.
Please join with us in telling President Bush to sign the amended bill.
http://www.uspirg.org/action/health-care/schip?id4=ES
Sincerely, Joe Rupp, TexPIRG Citizen Outreach Director JoeR@texpirg.org
http://www.texpirg.org/
P.S. Thanks again for your support. Please feel free to share this e-mail with your family and friends.