Bay Ridge Courier praises Fossella for supporting bill he voted against

Helen Klein of the Bay Ridge Courier wrote a recent article "Sick of it all... - Fossella at odds with Dubya over health care" describing Vito Fossella's opposition to Bush's maneuvers on SCHIP to create immensely difficult hurdles to prevent state's from expanding the program. And my response;

Dear Helen,

In an article from September 6, 2007, Sick of it all... - Fossella at odds with Dubya over health care, you write at length about Rep. Vito Fossella's opposition to President Bush's recent changes via Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on SCHIP.

I appreciate your coverage of the topic, as SCHIP in my opinion is a crucial program and we can not be a great country if we allow our children to go without health insurance and thus simple preventative care and check ups. You state;

"President George W. Bush has opposed expansion of SCHIP – in which the federal government pays matching funds to the individual states to administer their own versions of the program —threatening to veto legislation that would enlarge its scope."

One item of note that I did not see in your article on Rep. Fossella, is that on August 1, 2007 he actually voted against this bill and the same expansion of SCHIP that President Bush is also trying to prevent. Over fourteen paragraphs you cover the various angles of this from Fossella's purported opposition to Bush's veto threat to Gov. Spitzer's opposition, but never do you mention Fossella's actual vote.

I worry that we have allowed Rep. Fossella's communication team to craft the discussion on this issue as one of him being the champion of SCHIP while taking on President Bush. Yet maybe one of the best ways to take on Bush would have been to actually vote for this and then stood up for it, instead of trying to obfuscate the fact that when it comes to his job, crafting and voting on policy he has opposed SCHIP expansion.

I hope you have a chance to follow up on this article and expand on his NO vote. There is also plenty to cover on how the "expansion of SCHIP has received bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and in the statehouses" that other members of Congress were actually involved in.

Jonah
NY13blog

see also:
Fossella praises SCHIP after voting against it