Dems attempt to make health care a key issue in gov race

On Tuesday Governor Chris Gregoire sent a letter to Mike Leavitt, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, asking him to rescind the August 17, 2007 directive of the HHS to diminish the Federal government's role in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) which was illegally implemented according to recent studies published by the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service.

In addition to her general opposition to the directive, Governor Gregoire asked Leavitt to squash the matter because of what is sure to be an expense litigation process to make the directive run through the proper legal channels. That bit from the office of the governor, no politics involved.

Yet the very same day, the Washington State Democratic Party issued a press release touting the same GAO and CRS studies that called the directive illegal, only this time under the prism of a crusading Governor vs. a scheming challenger. The subtitle of the release said, "Gov. Gregoire stands up for WA kids, Rossi stands with Bush."

Citing the 2003 budget spearheaded by Dino Rossi and subsequent comments made by the Republican, Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz hit Rossi on the matter of reducing children's access to health care.

"On children's health insurance, Republican Dino Rossi continues to stand with his friend George Bush against the interest of Washington state's kids - further evidence that Washingtonians simply can't trust Rossi with our future," said Dwight Pelz. "While Gov. Gregoire has taken this challenge head-on and gotten real results for Washingtonians - covering 84,000 new children and on track to cover all of Washington's kids by 2010 - Republican Dino Rossi continues to back Bush's misguided policies on children's health care."

The Rossi campaign did not respond to requests for comment.