[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 77 (Wednesday, June 12, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1019-E1020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    CHILD HEALTH CARE AFFORDABILITY

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 11, 2002

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to help working Americans provide 
for their children's health care needs by introducing the Child Health 
Care Affordability Act. The Child Health Care Affordability Act 
provides parents with a tax credit of up to $500 for health care 
expenses of dependent children. Parents caring for a child with a 
disability, terminal disease, cancer, or any other health condition 
requiring specialized care would receive a tax credit of up to $3,000 
to help cover their child's health care expenses. The tax credit would 
be available to all citizens regardless of whether or not they itemize 
their deductions.
  The tax credits provided in this bill will be especially helpful to 
those Americans whose employers cannot afford to provide their 
employees health insurance. These workers must struggle to meet the 
medical bills of themselves and their families. This burden is 
especially heavy on, parents whose children have a medical condition, 
such as cancer or a physical disability, which requires long-term or 
specialized health care.
  As an OB-GYN who has had the privilege of delivering more than four 
thousand babies, I know how important it is that parents have the 
resources to provide adequate health care for their children. The 
inability of many working Americans to provide health care for their 
children is rooted in one of the great inequities of the tax code: 
Congress' failure to allow individuals the same ability to deduct 
health care costs that it grants to businesses. As a direct result of 
Congress' refusal to provide individuals with health care related tax 
credits, parents whose employers do not provide health insurance have 
to struggle to provide health care for their children. Many of these 
parents work in low-income jobs; oftentimes their only recourse to 
health care is the local emergency room.
  Sometimes parents are forced to delay seeking care for their children 
until minor health concern that could have been easily treated become 
serious problems requiring expensive treatment! If these parents had 
access to the type of tax credits provided in the Child Health Care 
Affordability Act, they would be better able to provide care for their 
children, and our nation's already overcrowded emergency room 
facilities would be relieved of the burden of having to provide routine 
care for people who otherwise cannot afford it.
  According to research on the effects of this bill done by my staff 
and legislative counsel, the benefit of these tax credits would begin 
to be felt by joint filers with incomes slightly above $18,000 dollars 
a year, or single income filers with incomes slightly above $15,000 per 
year. Clearly this bill will be of the most benefit to low-income 
Americans balancing the demands of taxation with the needs of their 
children.
  Under the Child Health Care Affordability Act, a struggling single 
mother with an asthmatic child would at last be able to provide for her 
child's needs; while a working-class family will not have to worry 
about how they will pay the bills if one of their children requires

[[Page E1020]]

lengthy hospitalization or some other form of specialized care.
  Mr. Speaker, this Congress has a moral responsibility to provide tax 
relief for low-income parents struggling to care for a sick child, in 
order to help them better meet their child's medical expenses. Some may 
say that we cannot enact the Child Health Care Affordability Act 
because it would cause the government to lose revenue, but who is more 
deserving of this money, Congress or the working parents of a sick 
child?
  The Child Health Care Affordability Act takes a major step toward 
helping working Americans meet their health care needs by providing 
them with generous health care related tax cuts and tax credits. I urge 
my colleagues to support the pro-family, pro-health care tax cuts 
contained in the Child Health Care Affordability Act.

                          ____________________