Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/senate-passage-of-schip-measure-increases-pressure-on-president-bush Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Congressional Democrats have increased their pressure on President Bush to not veto an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. On Thursday night, the Senate passed the plan by a wide enough margin to override a veto. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. KWAME HOLMAN: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was joined at a Capitol Hill news conference this week by 9-year-old Gemma Frost. Gemma and her brother, Graeme, suffered traumatic brain injuries in a car accident three years ago.REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), Speaker of the House: With the help of CHIP coverage, the Frost family had the security of knowing that, even in the time of family tragedy, that Gemma and Graeme had access to the care that they needed. KWAME HOLMAN: Pelosi was referring to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP, which Congress created a decade ago to fill gaps in health coverage for children whose families earned too much to qualify for Medicaid but still couldn't afford private insurance. More than 6.5 million children now are covered under the program.But when congressional leaders recently announced plans to expand S-CHIP to cover an additional four million children at an overall cost of $60 billion over five years, financed through a 61-cent-per-pack increase in the cigarette tax, President Bush issued a veto threat.GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: Democratic leaders in Congress want to put more power in the hands of government by expanding federal health care programs. Instead of expanding S-CHIP beyond its original purpose, we should return it to its original focus, and that is helping poor children, those who are most in need.