What Tim Kaine and Mark Warner are doing to get CHIP reauthorized

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RTD Opinions‏ @RTDOpinions 1h1 hour ago
GOP Congressmen: "Why don't @timkaine and @MarkWarnerVA do something about CHIP?"

@timkaine, @MarkWarnerVA: "You mean like this? Is this what you're talking about?" http://www.richmond.com/opinion/their-opinion/cod-dec-warner-kaine-respond-to-virginia-republican-congressmen/article_b6d2162d-e978-5a64-9648-858fbe8f3fe6.html

Warner, Kaine respond to
Virginia GOP congressmen

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

We write in response to Reps. Wittman, Taylor, Garrett, Goodlatte, Brat, Griffith, and Comstock’s guest op/ed piece, “U.S. Senate Must Act on CHIP.” We share our House colleagues’ passion for protecting the health care of 193,000 Virginia children but were disappointed by their inaccurate claim that we have yet “to step up to the plate and urge quick action” to reauthorize CHIP.

We’ve worked with Republicans to pass the Keeping Kids’ Insurance Dependable and Secure (KIDS) Act — a five-year CHIP reauthorization — in the Senate Finance Committee (on which Warner sits). If it were up to us, the Senate would have considered this overwhelmingly bipartisan bill shortly after the committee approved it on October 4.

After Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who controls the Senate’s floor schedule, failed to schedule a vote for three weeks, we wrote a letter asking him to “bring bipartisan legislation reauthorizing this important program to the floor as soon as possible.” He never responded.

We’ve also called on the majority leader to act on the Senate floor and on social media. McConnell still shows no urgency to bring any CHIP reauthorization up for a vote.

We welcome our colleagues in the House to do as we’ve done and urge Republican leadership to bring CHIP to the floor or attach it to the government funding bill. We also suggest they not push partisan bills that slash Affordable Care Act programs critical to Virginia families, like the one they mentioned. Virginians want us to protect health care, and turning a bipartisan issue into a partisan one is the wrong approach.

Thousands of children are at risk. The sooner Congress stops making CHIP a partisan issue and treating it like a low priority, the sooner we can end the worry of thousands of Virginia families.

Sen. Mark Warner.

Sen. Tim Kaine.Washington, D.C.

[FSogol]

1. K & R. n/t

[still_one]

2. Since the Senate screwed up the AMT removal for corporations in their deplorable tax bill, it is

pretty certain this will come back to the Senate for a vote because there will be reconciliation, and assuming that Collins, and maybe a few other Senate republicans will vote no on it if SCHIP, the personal mandate for the ACA, and some other assurances they were given aren't put back in the bill, there is still a small but real possibility that this so-called tax bill will go down.

That is why it is still important to let your Senators and Representatives know your displeasure with this atrocity

[MikeydaDog]

3. I agree with you. I was hearing it is an almost certainty that the House will sign on.

Others were talking about it going back for Senate vote. So explaining it as you did is appreciated. I agree with what you are saying.