[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 144 (Wednesday, September 26, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12133-S12134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CHILDREN'S HEALTH CARE

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I hope tomorrow the Senate will pass 
urgently needed help for millions of America's children. I hope it will 
be done quickly because it is a moral abomination that millions of 
America's kids don't have health care. If the Senate acts quickly and 
the White House approves the legislation, it would then be possible to 
move forward on a bipartisan effort to more broadly address the 
extraordinary health care needs of all of our citizens.
  The fact is, you don't get anything important done on health care, or 
other issues, unless it is bipartisan. Tomorrow, we will see a textbook 
case of bipartisanship on display on the floor of the Senate. Four 
members of the Senate Finance Committee on which I am proud to serve--
Senators Baucus, Grassley, Rockefeller, and Hatch--and I see my friend 
from Utah on the floor. I salute him personally in my remarks because I 
know the Senator from Utah, the Senator from West Virginia, the Senator 
from Montana, and the Senator from Iowa spent hours and hours, day 
after day, working on the legislation to help our kids.
  Bills such as this don't happen by osmosis; they happen because 
legislators of good faith, such as Senator Hatch, who, along with 
Senator Kennedy and others, was a pioneer of this effort. Senator Hatch 
has addressed the major concerns. This is protecting private options 
for health care for children. He has been able to target the neediest 
youngsters. I am pleased he has addressed this waiver question and the 
remarks that the Senator has made and the distinguished Senator from 
Iowa has made, joining Senators Baucus and Rockefeller. This is a 
textbook case, in my view, of how we address health care in a 
bipartisan way.
  Frankly, one of the points I am going to make tonight in my remarks 
is that I wish to have this issue addressed by the Senate quickly 
because, first, our kids need it so much and, second, because if we can 
get it done quickly, he and I, Senator Grassley, and so many other 
colleagues on the Finance Committee still want to work in a bipartisan 
way to go further.
  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. WYDEN. Yes.
  Mr. HATCH. I thank the Senator for his kind remarks, which come from 
somebody who I know takes health care very seriously and has proven 
himself to be one of the leaders in health care. I personally pay 
tribute to the other Members who have also worked so hard on the SCHIP 
bill; in particular, Senator Kennedy. I remember back in the early 
days, when it was a lonely thing for Senator Kennedy and I to go around 
the country talking about helping the poor kids, the only ones left out 
of the health care system. It took a leading liberal such as Senator 
Kennedy and this poor, old beaten-up conservative to be able to do 
that.
  I am grateful we were able to come up with a bipartisan bill that the 
House was kind enough to work with us on. That was one of the rare 
bipartisan efforts this year that I would like to see more of in the 
Congress.
  I sure hope somehow or another we can get the CHIP bill not only 
authorized but passed and signed into law so these 10 million kids have 
a future from a health care standpoint.
  In any event, I did not mean to take so much of the Senator's time, 
but I wanted to thank him for his very kind and thoughtful remarks. His 
friendship is important to me. I personally congratulate him for his 
sensitive and very professional work on health care, not only in the 
House of Representatives but here as well.
  Mr. WYDEN. I thank my friend. The fact that Senator Hatch and Senator 
Kennedy, in particular, have prosecuted this cause of improving health 
care for our citizens has been so important. It is going to pay off, I 
hope, this week with resounding support for the children's health bill.
  I want to spend a few minutes tonight talking about the possibility, 
with a strong victory for the cause of children's health, about the 
prospects of moving on from there. I wish to pick up on the remarks of 
the distinguished Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley. He has been very 
gracious in terms of working with me and looking at the variety of 
options for broader reform. And I appreciate the conversation that 
Senator Grassley had just a few days ago with the White House.
  What a lot of us are saying to the White House is we think you have 
some valid points with respect to the broader issue of health care 
reform. I happen to think that Democrats have been spot on, absolutely 
correct on the coverage issue. We have to cover everybody because if we 
do not cover everybody, the people who are uninsured shift their

[[Page S12134]]

bills to people who are insured. But Republicans have had a very valid 
point as well that there ought to be private options, that there ought 
to be choices, that you need to have a strong delivery system with 
American health care in the private sector. That is why I made mention 
of the emphasis in the children's health bill on the private sector 
options.
  My message to the White House has been, and I think the distinguished 
Senator from Iowa has made the same point, that it will not be possible 
to go on to the broader issue of health care reform until first the 
urgent needs of our children, needs that are demonstrated every single 
day in communities across the land--we are not going to see efforts on 
the broader reform effort pay off until first the needs of our children 
are met.
  I hope the White House will see that the prospects of getting into 
issues that they correctly identify as important--I have said for a 
long time, and I say to my colleagues again, every liberal economist 
with whom we have talked in the Finance Committee and the Budget 
Committee has made the point that the current Tax Code 
disproportionately on health care favors the most wealthy and 
encourages inefficiency.
  If the children's health bill can get passed, and passed quickly, we 
can then go forward, Democrats and Republicans, to work together on it. 
I have a different approach than the White House has with respect to 
fixing the Tax Code on health care, but certainly there are ways that 
Democrats and Republicans can work together if there is the same kind 
of good faith, bipartisan effort we have seen with Democratic and 
Republican leaders on the CHIP legislation.
  I hope the White House will not veto the CHIP bill. They want broader 
health care reform, and so do I. The fact is, Senator Bennett of Utah 
and I, along with Senator Gregg, Senator Alexander, and Senator Bill 
Nelson, have brought to the floor of the Senate the first bipartisan 
universal coverage health bill in more than 13 years. It has been more 
than a decade, I say to my colleagues, since there has been a 
bipartisan universal coverage bill.
  The fact is, out on the Presidential campaign trail, a lot of the 
Democratic candidates for President and a lot of the Republican 
candidates for President are talking about some of the very same 
approaches I outlined when I proposed the Healthy Americans Act in 
December of 2006.
  This is an important time for the future of health care in our 
country. I hope steps will be taken to meet the needs of our kids that 
are so urgent and the President will sign that legislation, that he 
will see the value of the important bipartisan work done in this 
Chamber. If he does, even though the clock is ticking down on this 
Congress--and there is not a lot of time left for major initiatives--I 
still believe, as do Senator Bennett and the sponsors of the Healthy 
Americans Act, Democratic and Republican colleagues with whom we 
continue to talk, that it is possible to go forward after a good 
children's health bill is passed to have broader health reform. And I 
think colleagues understand how urgent that is.
  One of the sponsors of our Healthy Americans Act, Senator Gregg, the 
ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, just came into the Chamber. 
I am very honored to have him as a cosponsor of the Healthy Americans 
Act. Senators Gregg and Conrad have correctly identified entitlement 
spending and the need to address it as a special priority.
  The fact is, we cannot address the growing escalation in entitlement 
spending unless we deal with health care reform. We just cannot do it. 
It cannot happen because there are no costs rising in America like 
medical bills. Medical bills are a wrecking ball, flattening 
communities across the country and are the principal factor in the 
mushrooming cost of entitlements.
  Again and again, the question of our country's well-being, the place 
of our companies in a tough global marketplace, the spiraling cost of 
entitlements comes down to the need to better address comprehensive 
health reform.
  I believe, even though there is not a lot of time left in this 
session of Congress, that can be done, but only if, as Senator Grassley 
noted early in the evening, the legislation that ensures that at least 
this session of Congress, at a minimum, takes steps to remove some of 
that moral taint we now face because our kids don't have health care. 
If that is done, we can go on from there.
  I hope tomorrow we will see a resounding vote for the country's 
children. It is in their interests, it is in their name that we have 
had a bipartisan coalition working on the legislation. But I also 
suggest to the White House and others who want broader reform, reform 
that picks up on some of the White House's principles, it cannot happen 
unless the children's health bill is passed, and passed with a strong 
majority this week and the President signs it into law.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I echo the words of the Senator from Oregon 
and thank him for his leadership on health care issues and especially 
his urging the President of the United States to sign the children's 
health insurance bill. We are hoping for a strong vote in the Senate 
tomorrow in passing that very important legislation.

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