The first challenger to fire a substantial salvo in this fight is the 4th District fundraising machine of Nels Ackerson, who pens a piece in today's Lafayette Journal and Courier:
No issue before Congress is more critical to Hoosier families who are struggling to meet staggering health care costs, and nothing is more central to our core values than the health and safety of our children. The issue: whether we value our children enough to provide them with adequate health care when they are in need.
Five members of Indiana's congressional delegation, including both of our senators and three members of the House, voted for this bill. They deserve our praise for putting people and sound principles above partisan politics. The other members of Indiana's delegation should now join them in voting to override the president's veto.
In passing SCHIP, compromises were necessary. Concern for fiscal responsibility had to be satisfied. Congress rejected a more costly bill that had passed the House, agreeing on a less expensive measure that still serves the needs of children. But President Bush vetoed the carefully-balanced compromise. Some of his supporters have falsely decried the bill as a partisan, big-government measure. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R- Iowa, rejected those attacks, saying of SCHIP, "It's not a government takeover of the health system. ... It's not expanding the program to cover high income kids. It's a good bill." Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that those advising the President to veto the SCHIP legislation were "misguided" and "sincerely wrong."
Indiana was 47th among all states in per capita income growth in the past decade. Real income has been stagnant for average Hoosiers in recent years while health care costs have increased at twice the cost of living. Hoosier employers who have not cut employee health benefits face health insurance premiums that are soaring.
The very members of this Congress who have created the largest federal deficits in our nation's history now are hypocritically calling SCHIP supporters the big spenders. The cruel irony is that the huge federal deficits already passed in the past six years have plunged us into an ocean of debt in which our children and grandchildren will have to swim or drown. The least we can do is to provide them with life jackets of adequate health care.
I quoted at length because Nels is spot on with his analysis of the situation, and this speaks volumes about the priorities he would take to Washington on behalf of his constituency. On the other side of the coin, Rep. Steve Buyer's notable silence on his vote says more about where he stands than anything else.
After all, it's not all that politically popular to say that you would rather protect the President than protect the hundreds of thousands of uninsured children across this country.
As I've mentioned before, I think the SCHIP vote, including the upcoming veto decision, is a perfect issue by which our Democratic challengers can begins discussing policy in their campaigns against Indiana's GOP congressional delegation. Here is a bill that is supported by a vast majority of voters, and in fact enjoys widespread bipartisan support from many notable conservative voices. Here is something we can point to and say, "Look at their values versus Hoosier values, and then decide who you agree with."
