[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 169 (Friday, November 2, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13718-S13719]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SCHIP REAUTHORIZATION

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, yesterday I voted with great enthusiasm for 
the SCHIP reauthorization bill. I think the present version is 
commendable and a version we should support. I particularly thank 
Leader Reid, Chairman Baucus, and Senator Rockefeller for their 
efforts, and I commend them.
  The bill provides an additional $35 billion to preserve coverage for 
all 6.6 million children currently enrolled, and it expands coverage to 
an additional 4 million children.
  The President and House Republicans have already denied these 
children access to health care once, by first vetoing the legislation 
and then sustaining the veto in the House of Representatives. I hope 
this version can pass without a veto. If it is vetoed, I hope the veto 
can be overridden.
  The President's proposal, rather than expanding coverage, would in 
fact dramatically restrict coverage, dropping 1.4 million children and 
pregnant women. That is according to the Congressional Budget Office. 
So there is a very stark choice between an administration that wants to 
restrict coverage for children and this legislation, which would 
maintain, and indeed expand, that coverage to cover 10 million children 
in the United States.
  With respect to Rhode Island, this bill adds an additional $75 
million in Federal funds on the table. It has to be matched, but this 
would allow the State of Rhode Island to maintain its program of health 
care for children. The bill would prevent shortfalls that have 
periodically cropped up, where the State found itself expending all of 
its funds and hoping there would be a redistribution of funds from 
other States that have not used their funds.
  Last year, and again early this year, I fought for $56 million in 
Federal funds to cover Rhode Island's shortfall. But these 11th-hour 
stopgap measures are not sustainable. The legislation we passed 
yesterday would prevent my State from being in a constant situation of 
shortfalls, hoping that other States have excess funds, and depending 
upon individuals in our delegation to get those funds for Rhode Island.
  If President Bush and the House Republicans fail to enact this bill--
if he vetoes it, and they sustain that veto--21 States will be at risk 
of shortfalls, totaling $1.6 billion. Rhode Island will have a 
shortfall of $44.1 million, beginning next March. We can predict that 
today. I don't know where my State would get that $44 million. It is in 
a severe budget crisis. State leaders are talking about trying to find 
$100 million to $200 million in cuts, which in our budget is a 
significant amount of money. So the idea that they would have to come 
up with $44 million on top of that is something that would be a very 
difficult challenge for Rhode Island.
  If Republicans do not enact this bill, we must fully fund an 
extension that covers these shortfalls. We will be back next spring 
scrambling to find money to keep these programs functioning. I hope we 
can prevail at this juncture to create a program and funding that will 
be sustainable, predictable, and supportive of efforts in my State, and 
many States across the country, to reach out and insure children for 
their health care needs.
  The President's opposition is not based on fact or common sense or, 
indeed, even common decency; it seems to be based on ideology. He says 
families would switch from private insurance to government-run health 
care. But the number of uninsured is rising because private insurance 
is too expensive. In Rhode Island, the average family premium for a 
year is $11,924. If you look at a typical working family in Rhode 
Island, it is struggling now to pay its mortgage. We have seen what is 
happening in the mortgage market, where many of these families, in 
order to get into a home, signed up for what are termed an ``exotic'' 
mortgage. In my State, foreclosures are at record-high levels. People 
cannot keep up with their mortgage payments. Then, added to that 
dilemma, wages have essentially been flat over the last 5 to 6 years, 
mortgage payments are going up, the price of gasoline is now reaching 
significant heights, and it is estimated that this winter heating oil 
in New England will be 20 percent more expensive than last winter. Are 
you then going to tell them: Oh, just go out and buy private health 
insurance for $11,000 a year?
  That makes no sense for working families in Rhode Island. They are 
struggling to keep their homes and, literally, to keep the lights on 
and keep it a little warm during the wintertime. For many of these 
people, private health insurance, at $11,000 a year, is way beyond 
their reach. So to sit there and seriously insist that this is a real 
choice for these families--a choice of getting into a public program or 
buying private insurance--verges on the ridiculous.
  Without the SCHIP program, thousands of families in my State--and 
millions of children across the country--will not have health care. 
There is no choice.
  There is also the President's argument that this is socialized 
medicine. I believe that is a gross misrepresentation. In Rhode Island, 
children are enrolled in private plans, and enrollees can choose their 
doctor. In fact, there is another program like this, called Medicare. I 
don't see the President rallying against Medicare, saying how it is 
socialized medicine. In fact, I can recall he proposed--and this 
Congress supported--one of the largest expansions of Medicare by 
adopting a drug benefit. That costs the Federal Government billions of 
dollars, and there is no discussion about that.
  These arguments are baseless. The President says this bill costs too 
much. In fact, this bill is fully paid for; it is one of the few things 
in the last 6 to 7 years that has been fully paid for. It is paid for 
by a cigarette tax, and it is in sharp contrast to the President's 
repeated request for money for Iraq and Afghanistan, which is not paid 
for. He is spending about $12 billion a month. Of that money, over the 
last several

[[Page S13719]]

years in Iraq, we have invested in items such as building Iraqi health 
care clinics and providing health care for Iraqis. In trying to 
reestablish stability in that country, the President recognizes that to 
have a decent, well-ordered society, you have to have access to health 
care for citizens. The problem is, he doesn't seem to recognize it here 
as much. So I believe we have to support this legislation.

  The President also says the bill doesn't target low-income children. 
In fact, 80 percent of newly insured children would be from families 
below 200 percent of poverty. That is a pretty good target.
  He talks about the bill expanding coverage to families making $80,000 
a year. That was always a misrepresentation. But we make it clear in 
this bill that eligibility is capped at 300 percent of poverty; that 
is, families making $60,000 a year. That sounds like a lot, but if you 
are in a major urban area, with rents costing $1,000 to $1,500 to 
$1,800 a month for just a fairly--and I emphasize ``fairly''--decent 
two-bedroom apartment for your family, when you do the math, these 
people are not in a situation of excess wealth by any means.
  In Rhode Island, 10,000 children remain uninsured. We can do much 
better. The Rhode Island program provides family-based health 
insurance. Rhode Island does enroll parents in this health care 
program. They found that it helps when the whole family is part of the 
delivery system. It has enhanced their ability to recruit children into 
the system. It has enhanced, in their view, health outcomes because now 
we have a family engaged rather than an individual child.
  I think it is appropriate in Rhode Island that we have such a 
forward-thinking and progressive approach because the basic SCHIP 
program was, in many respects, the work of Senator John H. Chafee, my 
colleague, a former Republican Senator who was succeeded by his son 
Lincoln Chafee in this Chamber. Senator Chafee, who was a pragmatic, 
hardnosed Republican whose values were to provide opportunity to all 
citizens in the nation, understood that if we could deliver effective 
health care to children in this country, we would go a long way to give 
them the physical tools to be successful in school, to succeed in the 
workplace, and ultimately to be citizens of this great country. He 
fought hard for this program. He didn't do it on an ideological basis; 
he did it on a very pragmatic, practical basis. His success has been 
demonstrated over the last 10 years because we have given more children 
access to health care.
  There are countless stories that will be forever unknown to us, but 
they will be decisive in the lives of children because this program has 
made a difference in their lives. Where they would have suffered with 
an undiagnosed disease that would have impaired their ability to thrive 
in school and work, because they had simple, preventive health care 
early on, they have been successful in school, and they will be 
successful in life. Families have been relieved of one of the most 
grievous fears they carry, and that is: Oh, my gosh, what happens if my 
child gets sick; I have no health care coverage--the gnawing fear at 
night that something could happen the next day and you have no way to 
protect your child because you cannot afford to get them health care. 
That fear has been relieved.
  There is a very popular commercial from one of the credit card 
companies: Such and such an item, $10; such and such an item, $9; 
having the ability to do this, priceless. For families, having the 
confidence that they have health care is priceless, and this bill has 
helped them.
  I hope the President will sign this bill, and if he doesn't--if he 
continues to roam through his ideological warehouse and pick out 
different odds and ends to justify this veto--then I hope the House 
Republicans have the courage to stand up and say: No, we are going to 
do what is right for the children of America, not just what is 
politically convenient for the President.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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