Rep. Baron Hill will change vote, try to override veto of health insurance bill

INDIANAPOLIS – Rep. Baron Hill says he’ll change his vote against expanding a popular children’s health insurance program, but hopes President George W. Bush’s veto stands and negotiators rework the bill.\nThe southern Indiana Democrat said Friday that he still opposes using higher cigarette taxes alone to pay for expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. He said he hopes his vote to override will carry enough favor with House Democratic leaders that he’s able to help tobacco farmers.\n“I hope the veto is sustained, quite frankly,” Hill said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’ve got to do my job of representing my tobacco farmers down in southern Indiana.”\nHill was one of only eight Democrats — and the only one from Indiana — who voted against expanding SCHIP by $35 billion over five years when the bill cleared the House 265-159 on Sept. 25. Since the House needs 290 votes to override a veto, backers must find 25 more votes. Indiana’s four GOP House members also voted no.\nThe Senate already has enough votes to override, including those of Indiana’s two senators, Republican Dick Lugar and Democrat Evan Bayh.\nIn Indiana, SCHIP helps pay for Hoosier Healthwise, which currently enrolls about 75,000 Indiana children from families earning up to twice the federal poverty level, a floating scale that’s $41,300 for a family of four. The bill vetoed by Bush would raise eligibility nationwide to four times the poverty level.\nThe bill would pay for the SCHIP expansion by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents per pack to $1. That’s separate from the 44-cents-per-pack increase in Indiana’s cigarette tax to 99.5 cents per pack on July 1.\nHill said he represents the eighth largest tobacco-growing congressional district in the nation, and that’s why he voted against the SCHIP expansion initially.\n“It should not be financed entirely by tobacco,” he said.\nAsked if he has been promised something by House leaders in return for a vote to override, Hill said, “Not yet, but I’ve been working on it.”\nOne angle, besides a possible say in changes to the SCHIP legislation if the House were to override Bush’s veto, could be benefits to southern Indiana tobacco farmers included in a new farm bill. The House has passed it, but it faces changes in the Senate, and the two chambers would need to work out a compromise.\nHill said he already has had talks on the farm bill with House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn.\nThe administration of Gov. Mitch Daniels opposes the SCHIP bill Bush vetoed. It argues that the higher federal cigarette taxes would cost Indiana smokers $300 million per year but the state would get only $50 million back in new SCHIP funds.\nSome states already provide SCHIP benefits to children in households earning four times the poverty level, but the Bush Administration in August imposed new rules limiting SCHIP expansions.\nAs a result of the new rules, the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration will not seek federal approval to expand Indiana’s SCHIP eligibility, even though the General Assembly this year approved a bill that would raise eligibility to three times the poverty level.\n“We’ve already been assured it would be denied,” FSSA spokesman Marcus Barlow said.\nDavid Roos, executive director of the South Bend-based government insurance advocacy group Covering Kids & Families of Indiana, noted that Hill was among a handful of House members who voted against the compromise bill but now would vote for a veto override.\n“The votes are still moving in the right direction, but they’re not there yet,” Roos said.