Patrick blasts Romney for medical aid stance
WASHINGTON - Governor Deval Patrick called his predecessor, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, "shameless" yesterday for criticizing a federally funded children's healthcare program while touting his own Massachusetts healthcare plan.
Like many Republicans, Romney opposes the expansion of the national State Children's Health Insurance Program to provide insurance to children in lower-income families. Congress has voted to expand the program, which is funded in part by the states, but President Bush is expected to veto it.
Democrats and some moderate Republicans say the SCHIP program provides critical coverage to children in low- and moderate-income families, but conservative Republicans call the idea the first step toward socialized medicine.
Patrick said SCHIP is a crucial element to expanding and maintaining coverage in Massachusetts, where Patrick estimated healthcare costs are likely to take up half the state budget within the next 10 years.
"Without SCHIP, then health reform, which he's been bragging about, fails. It's the same to me, the same behavior, as signing the bill and vetoing the funding for it, which is what he did before he left office," Patrick said in an interview with Globe reporters and editors yesterday. He was referring to a tax provision of the Massachusetts healthcare plan that Romney excised with a line-item veto.
"He's a nice fellow, but a shameless candidate," Patrick said of Romney.
The SCHIP program, which is up for renewal this year, is meant to help needy families obtain health insurance for their children. The program is targeted at families earning twice the poverty level or less, a little more than $40,000 for a family of four. But the law also allows states to apply to the federal government to cover more families. That provision is intended to help states where the cost of living is higher.
Massachusetts allows families earning three times the poverty level to obtain SCHIP coverage, providing help to 90,500 children in the state, according to statistics culled by the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and an architect of the original program.
Some 112,000 children in Massachusetts have no insurance, Kennedy's office said. The bill passed by Congress and headed for a presidential veto would allow the Bay State to add 27,400 children to the program over the next four years.
Opponents of expanding the program do not like that it relies on an increase in the cigarette tax to pay for it; some Republicans contend that Democrats will suffer at the polls for voting for a tax increase.
The House does not have enough votes to override a Bush veto, but Democrats have vowed to bring the bill up again and again, putting some moderate Republicans in an awkward position as they head into their 2008 reelection campaigns.
"We will be back tomorrow and the next day and for however long it takes to see this bipartisan bill become law. The president has broken his promise to America's children," Kennedy said.
