WASHINGTON — Ending months of deadlock with the White House, the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday gave final bipartisan approval to legislation that would temporarily extend the state health insurance program that covers about 6.6 million poor children. The bill, approved by a 411-3 vote, extends the program until March 2009. It also delays a scheduled 10 percent pay cut for Medicare doctors for six months and provides a 0.5 percent increase instead. Lawmakers have struggled for years to replace what they see as a flawed Medicare physician payment policy but have instead settled for a series of short-term fixes like this one. The Senate on Tuesday approved the same bill and the White House has indicated that President George W. Bush will sign it. Lawmakers predicted that they would have to revisit Medicare payments early in 2008. Bush vetoed more ambitious earlier bills that would have expanded the health program to cover about 10 million children, even though they had bipartisan support. The president said they were too costly and would push more children into government-run health care instead of private plans. Bush also objected to raising tobacco taxes to pay for the […]