[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 121 (Thursday, July 26, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S10054]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S10054]]
                     ACCESS TO QUALITY HEALTH CARE

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to talk about health care because 
we are going to be on this issue next week. It seems to me there are 
three things we all care deeply about in this country, no matter who we 
are or from where we come, and that is access to good quality education 
for all of our children, a job for people who want to work, and access 
to quality health care.
  The fact is, in my State, unfortunately, we have a health care crisis 
because about 25 percent of the population in my State does not have 
health insurance. So where they go for their health care is to the 
emergency rooms of the local hospitals, and that creates a lot of 
problems because that is the most expensive health care, the emergency 
room. People who go to the emergency room for their primary health 
care, if it is not truly an emergency but they have nowhere else to 
go--and you can hardly blame them--what it does is causes a lot of 
emergency rooms to go on divert status, and so true emergencies have to 
go to a farther off location to get care, thus entailing some risk and 
potentially even loss of life as a result of the delays.
  We have to tackle this problem. I know there are a lot of good ideas 
out there. We will be talking about some of those ideas next week when 
we talk about the reauthorization of the SCHIP program, the State 
Children's Health Insurance Program, that is important to my State and 
important to insuring children around the country.
  The problem that has grown up in SCHIP is that, unfortunately, 
Congress's original intent to provide health insurance to low-income 
children, up to 200 percent of the poverty level, has simply been 
overtaken by some States. I believe it is a total of 14 States now that 
use that money, those Federal funds, Federal taxpayer funds, to 
actually insure adults, obviously not part of Congress's intent, which 
was to focus on low-income children.
  Additionally, the original concept of SCHIP was dedicated to low-
income children up to 200 percent of poverty level. We have seen 
proposals where some have said it ought to go up to as much as 400 
percent of the poverty level, which, for a family of four, can mean an 
income over $80,000 a year and a mandate that SCHIP be used to provide 
health insurance for people with incomes in excess of $80,000 a year 
for a family of four.
  The challenge I think we have is to make a decision between whether 
we are going to continue to encourage access to private health 
insurance, a market-driven response, or whether we are going to simply 
say the Federal Government is going to take this whole matter over and 
we are going to have a single-payer system, a national system for 
providing health care. That, to me, is a very important debate.
  Frankly, from my standpoint, I believe every American needs the 
resources and the ability to purchase health insurance. I think going 
to a single-payer, Washington-controlled health care system is simply 
not the way to go. There are a number of ways we can approach this, and 
I hope this important debate we will have next week will address these 
issues.
  I think we have to end Tax Code discrimination against those who 
cannot get health insurance through their employer by giving a tax 
break to every American so they can purchase their own health 
insurance. Part of the problem is, people are frequently bound to an 
employer. They are afraid to leave that employer lest they be precluded 
from getting another health insurance policy because of previous 
existing conditions. So many people simply lack the portability of 
their health insurance, the ability to take it from job to job. In 
effect, they are bound almost to the extent of involuntary servitude 
with their current employer. We have to change that by creating 
portability.
  I think we need to give individuals the ability to take control of 
their health care needs and to continue to preserve something they 
think is very important, and that is the relationship between the 
patient and their health care provider, along with the freedom to 
choose what is in the best interest of that individual patient, rather 
than to have the Government determine for them what kind of health care 
they are going to get and perhaps ration it and create a huge, 
expensive bureaucracy to do so.
  I also hope part of this debate on reauthorization of the State 
Children's Health Insurance Program will allow us to look at what the 
ultimate goals are of some of the proponents. One concern I have is 
that the dramatic expansion of funding proposed by the Finance 
Committee--in language we haven't yet seen--will be a precursor to one 
more incremental step to a Government-controlled, Washington-centered 
health care bureaucracy, and that will make it harder and harder for us 
to provide the opportunity for individuals to purchase their own health 
insurance, along with the right to choose.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: My understanding 
was that you cited 30 minutes of morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is a 10-minute time limit per Senator.

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