Durham student lobbies for SCHIP

Eight-year-old Zeek Taylor of Durham was the latest ambassador on Capitol Hill today to join the Democrats’ push to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote this afternoon to override President Bush’s veto of a $35 billion expansion of the program to cover millions more children, reports Barb Barrett.

Supporters are thought to still be at least a dozen votes short of the total needed to override the veto, but that hasn’t stopped the lobbying.

Opponents say the proposed expansion is too lavish and would include middle-income children and young adults.

This morning, Zeek and his mother, Betty Taylor, faced a phalanx of cameras during a staged photo opportunity with his congressman, U.S. Rep. David Price, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Zeek, a third-grader at Club Boulevard Elementary School, was born nearly three months premature and spent his early life in the neonatal unit at Duke University Medical Center. He is the 2007 ambassador for March of Dimes, which brought 400 people to Capitol Hill on Thursday to lobby for the bill.

Engulfed by both a brown leather chair and his own generously cut suit jacket, Zeek smiled quietly and stared up at the cameras as shutters whirred and Pelosi and Price parried shouted questions about Bush’s veto.

"I hate to say this in front of Zeek,” Pelosi said in answering one question, “but just because the president says something doesn’t make it so.”

And Price added: “The fact is, the president, on the issue of covering 10 million children, has different values. Maybe he would like to decide which of the children will be insured, and which will not, and maybe he’d like to be the one to tell them that.”

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Although Zeek is not on the SCHIP program, he and his mother were speaking for a provision in the Democrats’ planned expansion. It would extend cover to income-eligible pregnant women for prenatal care.

They were not, however, planning to visit lawmakers who plan to vote no. Instead, their schedule includes thank-you visits with members who support the expansion.

“It’s obviously part of an overall effort to highlight the importance of this bill,” said Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat. “I think it’s making a difference.”

Meanwhile, on the House floor, debate continued this afternoon as member after member stood to make statements.

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, a conservative Democrat from Waynesville, invoked his two young children in his remarks supporting a “yes” vote.

“My wife and I thank God for the many blessings bestowed up on us,” Shuler said. “Some of these blessings we don’t think of every day, like having health care for our children. … My children, at the age of 3 and 6, they talk about, and they pray every day that God will bless all children.”

Shuler, who opposes abortion rights, called to pro-life Republicans to join his vote.

“My distinguished colleagues across the aisle talk about being pro-life,” Shuler said. “It’s time to start being pro-life, and vote to override this veto.”