[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 158 (Thursday, October 18, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H11769-H11773]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 SCHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mitchell). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to address 
you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.
  There have been a number of times that I have come down here to 
convey a message to you and the American people. And after having 
listened to the gentleman from Florida and his 30-Something colleagues, 
my material has just gotten so massive, I'm not sure I can rebut all 
that in the time that I have, let alone convey the message that I came 
here to convey, Mr. Speaker.
  First of all, there seems to be great confusion on the Democrat side 
of the aisle about the difference between health insurance and health 
care. They seem to believe, or at least would like to have the American 
people believe, that kids in America are being denied health care.
  This debate about SCHIP has never been about health care. I would 
draw this comparison: You will hear often in the debates in this 
country about people are pro-immigrant or anti-immigrant. And when I 
say that, Mr. Speaker, people draw up an image about being pro-
immigrant and anti-immigrant. Some people think illegal immigrants; 
some people think, appropriately, legal immigrants. When we say 
``immigrant,'' we should imply legal immigrant, and when we talk about 
illegal immigrants, we should say so.
  The same goes with health care and health insurance. To interchange 
the terms and, I think, willfully inform the

[[Page H11770]]

American people that this debate is about health care and to stand on 
the floor of the United States Congress and convey a message, Mr. 
Speaker, to the American people that there are kids in America that are 
not getting health care is not an accurate statement. And the gentleman 
from Florida, if he would examine his words and the meanings of the 
language, would know it's not an accurate statement.
  This is a debate about how many Federal dollars we are going to 
extract from hardworking Americans to put into federally subsidized 
health insurance, hopefully for kids. That's what SCHIP is about. But 
it is not even about all kids, because today, under the current 
program, the program that was drafted up in 1997 and became law in 
1998, was created by a Republican Congress, and it was created in the 
immediate aftermath of welfare reform.
  Remember welfare-to-work? We had generations of people that had 
become so dependent on welfare that they forgot about working. We 
needed to move them off of welfare, and we called it ``workfare'' part 
of the time.
  We also recognized that people that were low income, the working 
poor, when you would take them off of welfare, they didn't have enough 
funds to fund the health insurance for their children, so we created 
the State Children's Health Insurance Program. That's SCHIP. It's 10 
years old now today and we are talking about reauthorizing it. That is 
federally funded health insurance premiums for kids.
  But this program, even under the current law, has morphed into a 
program that if you go up to Minnesota and take a look, 87 percent of 
the recipients of SCHIP are adults. And most of those adults are not 
parents; they are single adults. And if you go to Wisconsin, 66 percent 
of those who are on SCHIP are adults. They have changed this program 
and they have morphed it away from being a program that was about 
health insurance premium subsidy for kids. That's a discussion they 
can't name.
  And I challenge anyone over here, stand up now, I will yield to you. 
Name one kid in America that doesn't have access to health care, one 
health care provider that slammed their door in the face of a kid in 
America or anyone in America because they didn't have health insurance.
  No. We take care of everyone's health care needs in America. That is 
not the crisis. If it was, you can bet the Pelosi side of the aisle 
would have marched them down here and maybe brought them up into the 
well for a photo op. But that population of this country doesn't exist. 
Everyone in America has access to health care, legal or illegal, for 
that matter.

                              {time}  1600

  And every child especially has access to health care.
  Now, we would prefer that they all have health insurance because we 
believe that those who have health insurance do a better job of going 
for their regular check-ups, and the medical providers will track their 
cases and be able to monitor them and be able to get early warning 
signs of chronic diseases or illnesses, and be able to maintain their 
health in a far more effective fashion for two reasons.
  One is it improves the quality of life for the children in this 
country, and the other is it saves money. That's why we established the 
SCHIP program in the first place. But it wasn't designed to take hard-
earned taxpayer dollars and put them into the pockets of people who 
could afford health insurance for their own children; and especially it 
wasn't designed to be able to put the Federal incentive in place to 
push kids off, to talk kids off, to put an incentive so that their 
parents made a decision or their employer made a decision not to insure 
them when they were already insuring them.
  And yet if you look at the numbers, the Congressional Budget Office, 
the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the gentleman from 
Florida would have to acknowledge gives us the most objective number we 
have, says that under this proposal that the President appropriately 
vetoed and that this Congress refused to override would take 2 million 
kids today that are funded with private health insurance and push them 
off of that onto the government roll.
  Now, why would we want to do that? What would be our incentive? If 
nobody's going without health care, if we have kids that don't have 
health insurance that are getting health care, why would we create a 
program or why would we grow a program that's going to take 2 million 
kids off of the private rolls and put them on the government? You have 
to be somebody that believes in socialized medicine to advocate for 
such a thing.
  And when Republicans bring a policy that recruits more of the 
uninsured to go on the rolls at 200 percent of poverty and below, where 
I have voted and consistently supported this program and voted to 
appropriate funds to this program, both as a State senator and as a 
Member of Congress, 200 percent of poverty, I can take you to where it 
is in my State today, that's an example I know to be fact, we can 
always discuss what's fact and what isn't, but in my State today a 
family of four, that's mom and dad and two kids, qualifies for SCHIP, 
that in Iowa we call it Hawk-I, premium subsidy if they're making less 
than $51,625 a year, Mr. Speaker. Now, that's probably a little above 
what's middle income for a family of four in the State of Iowa.
  And so if we've already gone above the line of where the median is, 
this Pelosi Congress passed this SCHIP legislation, not over here at 
300 percent of poverty, passed it over here at 400 percent of poverty, 
Mr. Speaker. That was the vision of the San Francisco values that have 
been brought here to the gavel in the chair where you're seated right 
now, 400 percent of poverty. Now, was there a clamor from the public 
that we should take their tax dollars and subsidize health insurance 
premiums for already insured kids that families were making over 
$103,000 a year? I didn't have a single letter that said so. I got a 
few that said, I think we ought to have socialized medicine. I think 
the Canadian plan is pretty good, the British plan is pretty good. The 
European model is all right.
  They disregard the long lines and the poor care. They disregard the 
fact that when you go to socialized medicine you have companies created 
in Canada for the purpose of facilitating access to American health 
care systems, companies that have sprung up because the Canadian is 
barred from having any special pass to go in front of the line; they 
all have to get to the back of the line. And so people don't always 
live long enough to get to their health care provider in places like 
Canada. That's what I want to avoid.
  And the companies in Canada that are created will set up this package 
and it will be, well, if you need a hip replacement, here's how we will 
do this. We will set it up so you can go to a clinic for a check-up, 
and we'll fly you down to whatever city it might be, let's pick one, 
let's say Minneapolis, and there we will give you a hotel room, or 
let's go to the Mayo Clinic, that's even better, in Rochester. We'll 
fly you down there. Here's the package; here's your hotel room; here's 
what it's going to cost you to go to the clinic; here's the surgeon, 
here's the anesthesiologist; here's the whole package.
  Now you figure out you can write the check to take the weekend tour 
to go down to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and get your new hip 
replacement and go back to Canada, because they can't get access to 
health care there because they have socialized medicine. That's what 
this debate is about, Mr. Speaker. It's about laying the cornerstone 
for socialized medicine in the United States of America.
  Here we are in a country where every kid, every person, every adult, 
legal or illegal, has access to health care, and we would like to 
increase the numbers of insured. But a Nation that has the highest 
quality health care in the world, one who is the most innovative of all 
nations in the world, the ones that has produced more new 
pharmaceuticals, more new surgical techniques, more new medical 
technology than any other nation, however you want to measure it, as a 
percentage of our GDP, as a percent of our population, measure it just 
as the sum total of the contribution to health care in the world, this 
country's medical practitioners and providers are the ones that have 
done that.
  And this cornerstone to socialized medicine that is attempted to be 
laid here by this Pelosi Congress undermines that innovativeness, that 
service, that quality that we have. And

[[Page H11771]]

that's why 150-some of us voted ``no'' on overriding the President's 
veto. That's why the President vetoed it, because your health care, 
Americans, is more important than the political demagoguery that's 
going on here on the floor of the United States Congress.
  The confusion between health care and health insurance, this debate 
is about health insurance, it's about us on the Republican side wanting 
to increase the percentage of covered kids under SCHIP under the 200 
percent of poverty here, those that are not covered now that can be and 
still qualify, and us, as Republicans on this side, wanting to roll 
down the numbers of adults that have found their way into this system 
to be 87 percent of the recipients in Minnesota, 66 percent in 
Wisconsin, and a dozen or so other States that have crossed this line.
  That's a standard that we're for, and it's something that they are 
opposed to. They won't speak up to the real issue that's here, Mr. 
Speaker, but this isn't about health care. It's about Federal subsidy 
of health insurance; it's about taking dollars out of people's pockets.
  And so at this level over here, Mr. Speaker, I will submit that it 
works this way: we have this thing called the alternative minimum tax, 
which was created to tax the wealthy. They weren't paying enough tax, 
so Congress created a new tax, the alternative minimum tax. And under 
this SCHIP proposal there will be, the one that passed Congress the 
first time, that's over here, 70,000 families in America would qualify 
for SCHIP subsidy, Federal taxpayer funding, and still have to pay the 
alternative minimum tax, the tax on the wealthy, at the same time 
they're being subsidized and they can't afford the health insurance for 
their kids.
  Now, figure that out. Think about how the circle has crossed. One 
circle over here is those that are so poor they need help, and the 
other circle over here is those that are making so much money we've got 
to give them an extra tax. But when you cross those two circles 
together, Mr. Speaker, and where they cross, that crescent in the 
middle, is 70,000 families, 70,000 families paying the alternative 
minimum tax and qualifying for Federal benefits for health insurance. I 
think that tells you that the loop for socialized medicine would be 
closed with this, and that's another reason the President vetoed it.
  Another subject matter that was brought up by the gentleman from 
Florida is this subject of the billions of dollars that are spent on 
the global war on terror, and of course he would focus it on Iraq, 
which is a battle ground in the global war on terror, billions of 
dollars. And the argument is we can spend billions of dollars on the 
war, but we can't spend $35 billion subsidizing health insurance for 
middle-income and upper-income children of those parents that are 
middle- and upper-income.
  Now, think about this: How cynical would you have to be to draw a 
diabolical argument that here we spend money over here on the war, if 
we've got enough money for the war, we surely have enough money for 
health insurance for these kids? I mean, if that's the case, if the 
gentleman from Florida is drawing a legitimate comparison, then you 
have to look at the resources over there for our soldiers, sailors, 
airmen and marines and say, well, I'm sorry, we're going to have to 
take $35 billion out of your resources and put them over here to 
subsidize health insurance for these kids, these kids that are getting 
health care, by the way.
  So how many fewer bullets, how many fewer bullet-proof vests, how 
many MREs, how much tank fuel or aircraft fuel, how many repair parts 
for a Blackhawk helicopter, how much surveillance equipment out there 
we would have to sacrifice to take away from those soldiers to fund 
this Pelosi plan for SCHIP? That's the other side of the argument.
  So if they're sincere, and I have heard Member after Member, Democrat 
after Democrat, come to this floor and go to the media and send out 
press releases that we're spending money on the war, we ought to be 
able to spend the money on the kids, well, if this is a zero sum game, 
then how many bullet-proof vests do they want to take away from our 
soldiers? How many Humvees? How much armor protection personnel? How 
much training, how much communication, how much human intelligence 
would we be willing to take away and how much risk would we be willing 
to put our soldiers through so that we could justify this program?
  I think when they're confronted with the reality of that argument, 
they would have to confess that they would never allow an amendment on 
the floor that would cause them to have to put up a vote and go on 
record to make that decision. But they will ask you to believe that 
somehow, that because we spend money on war, that gives justification 
to create a socialized medicine program here. We know what the agenda 
is: it is socialized medicine.
  And then I would argue, also, that to lay this thing out clearly, I'm 
going to go down through these, if I can, Mr. Speaker. This is a bit of 
a surprise package, I'm not sure what's underneath here, but we'll go 
with what we have, and that is, how do we fund this SCHIP according to 
the Pelosi plan?
  Well, we're doing it with an increase on tax on cigarettes. Right 
now, the Federal tax is 39 cents a pack. This bill that the President 
vetoed, that this Congress refused to override, adds 61 cents a pack to 
cigarettes. So now the Federal tax will be $1 a pack. The States can do 
whatever they want. The idea is if you raise the price of cigarettes, 
people will smoke less. Well, that's kind of a good thing, I would 
think, Mr. Speaker.
  But if we're going to fund this SCHIP program, these $35 billion 
worth of increases, then over this period of time, as we see here in 
this chart that is laid out, it takes it out to 22.4 million new 
smokers have to be recruited in order to fund this expansion of this 
socialized medicine program of laying the cornerstone by SCHIP; 22.4 
million new smokers. Now, that runs directly against the belief, and 
probably to some degree of fact, that the more it costs, the less 
people will smoke. So we add $1 a pack, and now we have to still raise, 
and even though the price goes up by a 156 percent increase, we still 
have to recruit 22.4 million new smokers. Now, I don't want to be 
involved in that, Mr. Speaker. I don't want that on my conscience. I 
don't want to have to bring Joe Camel back and run him through the 
schools so we can get new smokers to fund insurance for these kids.

  And another thing I would add is that, if this is about the kids, 
every dollar that is added to this program is added to the national 
debt. Now, who is going to pay that national debt? Somebody that's 58 
years old or somebody that's maybe 8 years old? And I'm going to say 
that the ruse that this is about the kids, while at the same time 
pushing that $35 billion into the national debt and asking those same 
kids that you say you're trying to help to pay the debt they incurred, 
I think is where the real hypocrisy lands, Mr. Speaker. 22.4 million 
new smokers? Not a very sound plan.
  This chart tells you what happens when you start raising the premium 
subsidy up for health insurance. When you get up here to this level and 
you get to 400 percent of poverty, which this Congress passed, then 95 
percent of the kids that are on private health insurance will drop off 
of that private health insurance and they'll go on government. So even 
if they're making $1 million a year, 95 percent of those kids go to the 
government premium side.
  If you take it on down to 400 percent of poverty and below, it's 89 
percent. And as we go down lower to where we are now, it's 50 percent. 
I contend that, if the parents have a job and the health insurance is 
with the job and the employer has put a health care package out, their 
health insurance package out there that includes the family, and most 
do, why would you put a program in place that's going to cause the 
employer to do this calculus: I don't know why I'm paying for that if 
the government will pay for that. I'm going to offer a proposal here 
that's going to save me money. I can take that and put it in my bottom 
line as an employer and call it profit and tell my employees, we're 
going to sign you up for SCHIP.
  I had a conversation with my son and daughter-in-law a couple of 
weeks ago. They blessed us with two little beautiful granddaughters, so 
they're a perfect model family of four. And I said here in Iowa, where 
this number right here, Mr. Speaker, if this bill had been overridden 
today that the President vetoed, in Iowa, a family of four would 
qualify for SCHIP funding at $77,437.50,

[[Page H11772]]

to be precise. Now, that's that family of four, that's my son and 
granddaughters and daughter-in-law. The calculus is pretty easy for 
them. They just say, well, we're self-employed, I guess we could do 
this. We could set our wages up to make sure that we don't break the 
cap on SCHIP and the kids would be funded then by the government, 
wouldn't they? And I said, I don't want to hear about that.

                              {time}  1615

  It was a bit of a levity kind of a conversation because they are 
going to take care of their responsibility and they have and they will 
continue to do that. But if that can be figured out in 5 seconds in the 
kitchen of my family, think how it can be figured out in every 
boardroom across America that will see an advantage here to push the 
kids, the children of their employees, off of their own privately 
funded health insurance, put them on the government-funded one, and put 
the profit, the savings, in their bottom line. You know that is going 
to happen. The people that will be the most believers of that have to 
be those on the other side of the line that don't believe in much for 
ethics and the free enterprise system that we have.
  That is how that is going to work. You push people off health care 
and so you get to this, Mr. Speaker, and this is what this is really 
about, SCHIP. Some might think that is for the State Children's Health 
Insurance Program. But I will submit that the real motive behind this, 
we have Presidential debates going on and candidates all over this 
country concentrated in my State, New Hampshire, and others, and you 
can feel and sense they have been pushing health care 6, 7, 8 months to 
bring this debate to a head, and a delay in this Congress in coming to 
the negotiating table so we can actually extend this program in a 
responsible fashion is partly rooted in the Presidential politics and 
in the partisan politics in this Congress. I think the majority of it 
is rooted in that. So I will submit SCHIP really stands for Socialized 
Clinton Style Hillary Care for Illegals and Their Parents. And I hope 
the camera is on this so it doesn't get missed. SCHIP, Socialized 
Clinton Style Hillary Care for Illegals and Parents.
  By the way, I did not get to that illegal component that was laid out 
by the gentleman from Florida. Well, one can point to language in the 
bill that says ``you don't get to send any of this money to people who 
are otherwise deportable.'' That language is in the bill. But, Mr. 
Speaker, I will inform you, this body, the people in this country, that 
there is additional language in the bill that weakens the citizenship 
standards that exist today, not just for SCHIP, but for Medicaid as 
well. We have citizenship requirements for Medicaid that you have to 
demonstrate, you have to prove your citizenship. And of those 
conditions that will be producing a birth certificate and another 
document, a photo ID perhaps or a passport or a list of other documents 
that demonstrate your lawful presence in the United States and your 
eligibility for SCHIP and for Medicaid; those are current law 
requirements. This bill that says in one paragraph ``this money can't 
go to illegals'' says in another paragraph ``but if you know how to 
write down a Social Security number, that will be all that is 
required.''
  The Social Security Administration has put out information that says 
you cannot verify citizenship by a Social Security number. There are 
millions of Social Security numbers that are not numbers for citizens. 
There are millions out there that are nonwork Social Security numbers, 
and there are millions out there that have been given to people that 
are here on work visas, student visas, visitors, you name it, for one 
reason or another, so they can get a driver's license or buy insurance, 
or maybe qualify for a benefit, millions of Social Security numbers 
that do not connote citizenship. And the only standard that is left, 
that is required in this current bill is you have to submit a Social 
Security number. And it is implied, it might even be specific, that it 
be a valid one. But we know how well that works when we have 20 million 
illegals in America and we have somewhere between 7 and 12 million 
working illegals in America, many, in fact most of them, using phony 
Social Security numbers. So if they can get a job and that number can 
report their wages every week and we can't figure out where they are, 
how in the world can anyone over hear say, ``well, none of this money 
is going to go to illegals'' when the Congressional Budget Office has 
made it clear and issued their report that the net cost to taxpayers 
because of the opening up of the citizenship standard is 6.5 billion, 
that is with a B, $6.5 billion, Mr. Speaker.
  There isn't an argument on this that is seriously grounded in the 
facts. We take our facts from the Congressional Budget Office.
  So I will roll this together. In my State, currently a family of four 
qualifies for hawk-i, SCHIP funding, for their health insurance. This 
isn't health care, remember; it is health insurance, at $51,625 a year. 
A family of four. That is off the Web page of Governor Culver, by the 
way. And if this bill had passed, it would have qualified that same 
family of four at $77,437 a year. But this Congress first passed 400 
percent of poverty, which would have qualified that same family of four 
at 103,250 or so dollars in that legislation, over $100,000, and not a 
fiscally responsible peep out of the Speaker, out of the Democrat side 
of the aisle that I heard, out of my Governor. No one stood up for the 
taxpayer on that side of the aisle. That is because they are actively 
engaged in laying the cornerstone for socialized medicine.
  I will continue, 2.0 million children, taken off of their own private 
insurance, nudged off, because the government will pay for it, why 
would you pay for it? If it is free or you have to write a check, which 
line are you going to get into? There will still be a lot of patriotic 
Americans who will get into the ``I will pay for my own line.'' God 
bless you for that. That is, by the way, 2.0 million children. That is 
a Congressional Budget Office number, the highest standard we have 
here; $6.5 billion for illegals to go on Medicaid and SCHIP? That is a 
Congressional Budget Office number.
  You can't convince me that this isn't going to legalize access to 
health care services for illegals who, if we had the voucher delivered 
by ICE, the Immigration Custom Enforcement, would be compelled to pick 
them up and send them back to their own country. Think about that. If 
we made the couriers for vouchers for SCHIP to be ICE, they would have 
to come along and say, ``Well, okay, here's your voucher, but you're 
not going to be able to cash it in because I am sending you back home 
again because that is the law.''
  How bizarre is it to hear the rhetoric coming out of that side of the 
aisle? These are the facts, Mr. Speaker. It weakens the citizenship 
requirement. It is a net loss to my State of $226 million, more tobacco 
tax paid sent to Washington, we get $226 million less. Bad deal, 
Governor Culver. You ought to understand that. That is also a number 
that is put out by a government office, and that is the Centers for 
Disease Control produced a number of a minus $226 million just for 
Iowa. Other States did worse. Other States were net gainers. The 
tobacco tax, 156 percent increase, and then, Mr. Speaker, not 
forgetting about the 22.4 million new smokers that we will need to get 
this program funded.
  So, all in all, Republicans have taken care of this. We created this 
program. State Children's Health Insurance Program is about providing 
help in health insurance premiums for the children in lower income 
families that don't qualify for Medicaid. It is about the transition 
off of Medicaid on to private, on to self-reliance, on to all the 
dignity that comes with carrying your own load, helping transition 
gradually and easily off on to that. It is about that.
  It is about protecting and preserving our private health care system 
that is the best in the world. That is where we are on this side of the 
aisle, Mr. Speaker. That is where the President is on this. The other 
side of the aisle is about laying the cornerstone for socialized 
medicine, because once you get 95 percent of the people dependent on a 
program, they consider it an entitlement. Democrats know that. The 
Democrat leadership knows that at least. And that, I believe, Mr. 
Speaker, is the strategy.
  I don't know how, when they come back with the next argument that was 
laid out by here by Bill Clinton that they wanted to lower Medicare 
eligibility to 55 years old, then you look at

[[Page H11773]]

this universe of people, people collecting SCHIP today at age 25, 
remember all those adults in places like Minnesota and Wisconsin, up to 
age 25, and if we lower Medicare eligibility to 55, now who is paying 
the bill for all the health insurance and health care in America? Well, 
it would be those folks between the ages of 25 and 55, Mr. Speaker. And 
don't you think that side of the aisle knows the resentment that will 
build when someone writes their own check for their health insurance 
premium and their check for the alternative minimum tax and their check 
for their income tax and they realize that they are paying for theirs 
and everybody else's. If they can't say no to this, then they are going 
to come back to us and say, ``Give us the Canadian plan. I give up. I 
capitulate. Because I just can't fund it both ways. You have made it 
too easy for too many people. Now it is too hard for me.''
  That will be the calculus among the American people. That will be 
what ultimately closes this and builds this socialized medicine that 
they are trying so desperately to build. And by the way, there is no 
provision to fund this thing past these years that I have shown here, 
Mr. Speaker. That cliff in the funding drops off. It drops down to a 
very small percentage of the overall revenue stream. The reason is they 
believe that they will have a President and a majority in the House and 
in the Senate that will have given us the full-ride socialized 
medicine. So they don't have to worry about funding this through this 
program. Watch as this unfolds. Bill Clinton stood back in this well 
September 22, 1993, and he gave about an hour speech, 12 pages long, 
that lays out the game plan. Now his wife is poised to carry out the 
balance of it.
  I stand here in resistance to socialized medicine or laying the 
cornerstone for it, but I stand with my colleagues in protecting the 
kids in America, protecting their freedom, protecting an investment in 
them. I refuse, I refuse to put this burden as a national debt upon 
those same kids and ask them to pay it when they get to be the age of 
adults.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________