SCHIP Redux

Sensing a political advantage, Democrats rushed Wednesday to move a health care bill for children back to the House floor, having made minor changes to win over more Republicans.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would vote Thursday on the new bill. Like the original, which President Bush vetoed three weeks ago, it would cover 10 million children through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and increase spending on the program by $35 billion, for a total of $60 billion, in the next five years.
But the new bill would tighten eligibility for the program, generally barring the use of federal money to cover illegal immigrants, childless adults and children of families with incomes exceeding three times the poverty level: $61,950 for a family of four. . . .
Under the new bill, as under the previous one, the federal excise tax on cigarettes would be increased by 61 cents a pack, to a total of $1, and Mr. Leavitt said the administration still opposed that provision.