July 15, 2008, 7:39 am
Bush to Veto Medicare Bill Today
Posted by Jacob Goldstein
We knew the veto was coming, but we didn’t know just when.
The mystery ends today when President Bush will veto a bill blocking Medicare pay cuts to doctors, Congressional Quarterly reports.
The bill cuts subsidies from some privately managed Medicare plans backed by Bush and many Republicans.
But the veto is really the start of the denouement here; the climax came last week, when an ailing Ted Kennedy made a surprise appearance on the Senate floor, pushing the vote through. At the same time, several Republican senators switched sides on the vote, giving it enough backing to override the veto.
At a press conference yesterday, an administration official who said the veto would come today blamed the likely override on the Republicans who switched sides to support the bill, after voting against it a few weeks back, CQ reports.
“[I]t’s not the Democrats who put us in that position. It’s the nine Republicans,†he grumbled.
An override could come in the House (which passed the bill by a wide margin) as soon as this afternoon, with the Senate following soon after, CQ says.
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