Russ Warner Challenges David Dreier to Stand Up for Children’s Health Care
OCTOBER 1, 2007 (SAN DIMAS) - Today, Russ Warner and more than 30 health and child care advocates rallied in front of Congressman David Dreier's San Dimas office, protesting his vote against a bill that will likely cause hundreds of thousands of California families to lose health insurance for their children in the coming months.
Passing motorists honked in support of the protestors, who carried signs demanding Dreier stop turning his back on California's children. Warner, a Democrat running for Congress in California's 26th District, said Dreier should stand for children and not with Big Tobacco and President George Bush, who vowed to veto the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
"I believe we must provide affordable healthcare for children," Warner said. "By voting against SCHIP, David Dreier proves he doesn't care about the well-being our children."
Currently 850,000 children in California receive health care coverage through the SCHIP program in California, called Healthy Families. Dreier voted along party lines against the reauthorization of the program and a proposed expansion that could have extended health care coverage to another 650,000 children in California currently without health insurance.
"David Dreier continues to support funding the war - which costs us nearly $450 billion - but is unwilling to invest in California's kids," Warner said. "This just shows how out of touch he is with the priorities and concerns of working people."
Taxpayers in the 26th Congressional District will have paid $1.3 billion for the cost of the Iraq War through 2007. For the same amount of money, health care could have been supplied to 149,373 children, according to the National Priorities Project.
President Bush is expected to veto the legislation that won approval in the House and Senate. The measure failed to receive a two-thirds House majority vote that would be needed to override a presidential veto. September 30 was the renewal deadline for the program paid for through federal tobacco taxes. The proposed expansion of the program calls for increasing the federal levy to $1 per pack, a 61-cent increase.
Warner announced his run for Congress in June, saying he is taking on the fight because the war in Iraq must be stopped and because America needs new leadership with fewer career politicians like Dreier. The devastating cost of the war was brought home to Warner and his family in a personal way. Warner's son Greg served in the military and was sent to Iraq for seventeen months.
To find out more about Russ Warner and his campaign for Congress, visit http://www.WarnerforCongress.com or call 909.837.9474.
