On Wednesday, President Bush was asked why he vetoed the CHIP legislation that would provide health care to almost ten million children. His response: "to ensure that I am relevant".

It is amazing that he thinks his relevancy is more important than health care for ten million children.

We already have 69 votes in the Senate, more than enough to pass the bill without the President, and the House of Representatives came within 13 votes of overriding his veto yesterday.

This is a tiny margin, and your efforts can help put us over the top.

Sign our petition to member of the House who oppose CHIP -- tell them our children are more important than the President's relevancy.

Now the President is saying "Why don't we sit down and compromise on CHIP?" How in the world does he think we got where we are? How did we get to 69 senators to support this legislation? Compromise.

We started with a cost of $70 billion, then went to $50 billion and finally compromised at $35 billion. For the President to come now and say, "Let's compromise," is completely disingenuous. Saving children should be more important to the President than saving face.

Sign our petition to member of the House who oppose CHIP -- tell them our children are more important than the President's relevancy.

Here is the irony of the President's veto: This program was created by Orrin Hatch, a conservative Republican, and Ted Kennedy 10 years ago. Why? Because Orrin Hatch had two families come to him -- both families were working. They didn't qualify for Medicaid. They couldn't buy insurance. They didn't have the money. So in the finest example of bipartisan cooperation, conservative Orrin Hatch and liberal Ted Kennedy sat down and created one of our nation's most successful health care programs.

Now George Bush vetoed this bill simply to remain relevant. Ten million children are not irrelevant.

Sign our petition to member of the House who oppose CHIP -- tell them our children are more important than the President's relevancy.