A bipartisan bill that would provide much-needed federal assistance to moms-to-be, which was being hammered out between the staffs of Sens. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Tim Kaine (R-VA), stalled out because the man Donald Trump selected as his running mate cut off talks.
According to a report from the Washington Post's Jeff Stein, the bill would have limited childcare costs by reining in insurance companies slamming parents and new mothers with "co-pays or other expenses related to childbirth."
As the report notes, at about the same time that the Donald Trump campaign began serious vetting of possible running mates, Vance's staff quit returning calls from Kaine's office, putting the bill on hold.
Stein is reporting, "Vance’s team started working with the office of Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) on the bill in June 2023, talks stopped this June and have not resumed, leaving the fate of the legislation unclear after Vance’s nomination to the GOP ticket, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations."
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The decision by Vance to go AWOL on the issue comes as he is under withering scrutiny for a previous interview where he complained to now-fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the country is being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
The Post reported that Vance's office offered up the defense that talks could resume and the "the senator could still get behind the childbirth proposal" now that the Senate recess and the holidays are over.
