Child Health Care Bill Advances in Senate

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — The Senate moved on Wednesday to take up a measure providing wellness coverage for 10 million children, just hours after President Shrub said he would blackball the statute law because it called for "a monolithic taxation increase." Related

Behind the scenes, members of United States Congress stepped up attempts to negociate a via media that would fulfill adequate House Republicans to overrule a veto.

Senate Republican leaders, working with the White Person House, tried to barricade action on the bill, passed last hebdomad in the House by a ballot of 265 to 142 — short of the two-thirds bulk needed for an override.

Mr. Shrub said the new measure had "the same major flaws" as the 1 he vetoed four hebdomads ago.

"It neglects to cover mediocre children first," he said. "It switches children with private coverage onto the authorities rolls, and it utilizes taxpayers' dollars to subsidise middle-class families, and finally it raises taxes."

The new measure cleared a procedural hurdle on Wednesday as the Senate voted, 62 to 33, to restrict argument on a movement to take it up.

Two of the chief designers of the bill, Senators , Democrat of Montana, and , Republican of Iowa, met Wednesday with a smattering of House Republicans to thresh out a possible compromise.

Mr. Baucus, president of the Finance Committee, said the grouping reached "an understanding in concept, in principle," on some issues.

The treatments did not cover with a proviso that would increase baccy taxations to finance enlargement of the .

Under the bill, the federal excise taxation tax on cigarets would be put at $1 a pack, up 61 cents from the current level.

Mr. Shrub strenuously objected to this provision.