[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 184 (Tuesday, December 4, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14742-S14745]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. SANDERS (for himself, Mr. Coleman, Mr. Obama, Ms.
[[Page S14743]]
Snowe, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Brown, Ms. Collins, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr.
Lugar, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Smith, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Sununu, Mr.
Bingaman, Mr. Schumer, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Casey, Ms. Mikulski,
Mr. Menendez, Ms. Stabenow, Mr. Lieberman, Ms. Cantwell, Mr.
Biden, and Mrs. Boxer):
S. 2405. A bill to provide additional appropriations for payments
under section 2604(e) of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Act of
1981; to the Committee on Appropriations.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Keep
Americans Warm Act, which provides an additional $1 billion in
emergency home heating aid under the highly successful Low Income Home
Energy Assistance Program, otherwise known as LIHEAP. Most importantly,
this $1 billion in emergency home heating assistance would be in
addition to the overall fiscal year 2008 appropriations for LIHEAP.
I am delighted this bill enjoys widespread bipartisan support from
across the political spectrum. As a matter of fact, this legislation is
being cosponsored by 23 of my colleagues--16 Democrats, 6 Republicans,
and 1 Independent.
I would like to recognize all of the cosponsors this morning: both
Senators from Minnesota, Mr. Coleman and Ms. Klobuchar; Senator Obama;
both Senators from Maine, Ms. Snowe and Ms. Collins; both Senators from
Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Kennedy; Senator Brown; Senator Lugar;
the senior Senator from the great State of Vermont, Senator Leahy;
Senator Smith; Senator Bingaman, the chairman of the Energy and Natural
Resources Committee; Senator Sununu; both Senators from New York, Mr.
Schumer and Mrs. Clinton; Senator Casey; Senator Mikulski; Senator
Menendez; Senator Stabenow; Senator Lieberman; Senator Cantwell;
Senator Biden; and Senator Boxer.
Mr. President, the reason this legislation is being cosponsored by so
many of my colleagues is simple: Skyrocketing home heating prices in
New England, the Northeast, and the Mideast, are already stretching
household budgets beyond the breaking point.
In the wealthiest country on the face of the Earth, not one family
should go cold this winter. That is not what America is supposed to be
about. Not one senior citizen should have to choose between heating
their homes or paying for their prescription drugs.
I am afraid if we do not act, and act aggressively, that is what is
going to happen all across this country. While the official start of
winter is still about 3 weeks away, home heating prices in Vermont and
in other parts of the country are already going through the roof.
According to the Central Vermont Community Action Council, many
Vermont families have been paying an incredible $3.47 a gallon for
heating oil and as much as $3.71 a gallon for kerosene this year.
Nationwide, heating oil prices are already up 90 cents from last year,
or more than double from where they were 4 years ago. Further, the
price of kerosene has also increased by 50 cents a gallon from last
year.
These rapidly rising energy prices right now are bad enough; but the
overall projections of what people will pay for energy over the course
of this winter is frightening.
The National Energy Assistance Directors Association has projected
that the typical household using heating oil will pay $2,157 to heat
their homes this winter--a 47-percent increase from what they paid last
year. Those using propane will pay $1,765 this winter, or 30 percent
more than what they paid 2 years ago.
Before we got back into session this week, the debate over LIHEAP was
between an 11.6-percent increase from last year, as included in the
fiscal year 2008 Labor-HHS conference report, and the President's
budget proposal of a 21-percent cut--cut--from last year.
While the level of funding for LIHEAP included in the Labor-HHS
conference report is a good starting point, even if this level
eventually becomes law, it would still be 31 percent below the $3.2
billion provided in fiscal year 2006.
Making matters worse, the President vetoed the Labor-HHS conference
report, insisting on a $379 million cut to LIHEAP, among other things.
We hear a lot of talk in Washington about family values. Well, to my
mind, a family value is that we do not let our fellow Americans go cold
when the cost of home heating oil is exploding.
I thank all my colleagues. This legislation has brought forth
widespread bipartisan support from Senators all across this country.
Let us be aggressive and pass this legislation so that in this great
country nobody goes cold this winter. Thank you.
______
By Ms. SNOWE (for herself, Mr. Conrad, Ms. Collins, and Mrs.
Lincoln):
S. 2406. A bill to amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to
permit States to obtain reimbursement under the Medicaid program for
care or services required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and
Active Labor Act that are provided in a nonpublicly owned or operated
institution for mental diseases; to the Committee on Finance.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the Medicaid
Emergency Psychiatric Care Act of 2007. Original cosponsors this bill
include two of my colleagues on the Finance Committee, Senators Conrad
and Lincoln, as well as Senator Collins. Our legislation will improve
access to mental health treatment and remove an unfunded mandate on our
nonpublic mental health treatment centers by allowing freestanding
psychiatric hospitals to receive appropriate reimbursement for
emergency treatment.
According to the CDC, visits to hospital emergency rooms rose 20
percent in the past 10 years. This situation is exacerbated by a
shortage of short-term inpatient psychiatric care facilities leaving
psychiatric patients with a serious mental illness with nowhere to go.
In fact, in 2003, there were 3.7 million visits to hospital emergency
department for mental disorders. If treatment remains unavailable,
patients could become homeless or be housed as criminal offenders.
The Emergency Medical and Labor Treatment Act, EMTALA, requires all
hospitals, including psychiatric hospitals, to stabilize patients who
come in with an emergency medical condition. However, an outdated
Medicaid provision called the Institution for Mental Diseases, IMD,
exclusion does not allow Medicaid reimbursement to nonpublic
psychiatric hospitals for stabilizing care delivered to Medicaid
patients between the ages of 21-64. This policy isolates adults with
mental illnesses from all other Medicaid-eligible populations and
contradicts the principles of equal treatment and insurance parity for
treatment of mental illnesses.
When the IMD exclusion was created, individuals who were afflicted
with mental health conditions often were institutionalized for an
extended time. Today, hospitalization for common mental health concerns
such as mild depression does not generally occur, thus removing the
potential for abuse of the system. This exclusion burdens these
facilities with an unfunded mandate and has caused severe financial
burdens to psychiatric facilities--often amounting to millions of
dollars a year. The IMD exclusion does not take into consideration the
vast advancements that have transformed mental health services
available today, and actually restricts access to critical mental
health services for those who, by today's standards, are in the
greatest need.
Emergency department overcrowding is a growing and severe problem in
the United States, and dedicated physicians and nurses who work in
emergency rooms are reaching a breaking point where they may not have
the resources or surge capacity to respond effectively. Patients often
face a long wait in the emergency room, sometimes for days, because
there is no bed or other appropriate setting available. Tens of
thousands of dollars every day are being spent inefficiently on
extended treatment in emergency rooms that is not the most appropriate
or clinically effective care. Passage of this bill will help relieve
overcrowding in emergency departments and allow hospitals to provide
the appropriate care these patients deserve.
______
By Mr. CASEY:
S. 2407. A bill to provide for programs that reduce the need for
abortion, help
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women bear healthy children, and support new parents; to the Committee
on Finance.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about members of the
American family whom we all care about, and I think all of us do in
this chamber and across America, but for whom we do not do nearly
enough to support, and those members of the American family are
pregnant women.
I remember, as so many others do in the life of the family the times
my wife Terese learned that she was pregnant, and even through I, of
course, cannot ever experience it directly, I knew and I know now
through her and my sisters' experience that that moment is indelible,
and it is unforgettable in the life of a woman, in the life of a
family, the moment she finds out that she is pregnant.
For many women this is a moment, of course, of great joy. It is the
moment where they learn they are pregnant and they appreciate the
miracle of pregnancy. And perhaps it has been long awaited or in the
case of a particular woman and her family, perhaps it is something of a
surprise. But for many women, for many families, it is a welcome
surprise.
Many of these women do not need help beyond what their families can
provide them and what others may receive in terms of adequate support
from our existing framework of support within this country, so they do
not feel they have any great burden at that moment.
But there is another circumstance other pregnant women may face. And
for those pregnant women, and for one, in particular, if we can imagine
who that person is in the life, in our own lives, people we have known,
for that woman the moment of discovery that she is pregnant
unfortunately is not a moment of joy. For her it is a moment of terror
or panic or even shame in some circumstances. She may be in a doctor's
office or a clinic or she may be at home. But for her that moment
begins a crisis, a real crisis in her life, in which she feels
overwhelmingly and perhaps almost unbearably alone, all alone. She
could be wealthy, middle income, or poor. Most likely, in our country,
unfortunately, she would be poor. But whatever her income, that woman
at that moment in that circumstance feels very simply all alone.
A pregnant woman may have an abusive spouse or boyfriend, for
example, that person who is tormenting her at that moment, and that
will continue.
At that moment for her, she is all alone with no help at all. Another
pregnant woman may believe she cannot support or care for a new baby at
this point in her life. She too is all alone. Another woman might
believe her financial situation is so precarious that she cannot care
for or raise a child. She may also feel alone and even helpless.
We know the staggering numbers in America today: 48 percent of all
pregnancies are unintended; excluding cases of after miscarriages, 54
percent of those unintended pregnancies end in abortion.
The response: ``cannot afford a baby,'' is the second most frequently
cited reason why women choose to have an abortion. And 73 percent of
women having abortions citing this reason: ``cannot afford a baby,''
cite this reason as a contributing factor in their decision.
So a woman who is facing the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy,
that may be a crisis for her, does not need, does not need a lecture
from a politician and does not need a clinical reminder that she just
has a simple choice to make. The choice is never simple, never, and
this woman needs support and love and understanding. She needs to be
embraced in a time of crisis in her life, not sent on her way to deal
with this question on her own.
She needs our help and she needs us to walk with her, not only
through the 9 months of her pregnancy, but also for the early months
and years of her child's life. We in the Congress, both House and
Senate, both parties, need to address this issue in a comprehensive way
that meets those needs that woman has in her life.
Some Members in this body for years, and up to the current day, have
initiated good efforts. We should applaud those efforts and support
them. In some cases there is support for them. But I believe neither
political party is doing enough for pregnant women in America today--
neither party.
While there is tremendous disagreement about how best to do this,
there is one significant area of common ground. Despite all we hear in
Washington, there is, on these questions, one area of common ground,
one thing we all agree upon, and that is, we all want to reduce the
number of abortions.
We all want to help as many pregnant women, as many families as we
can. Many women who have had abortions do so very reluctantly. While
choice is a term that is widely used in this debate, many women who
face unplanned pregnancies do not feel, do not feel they have a genuine
choice. And that is why for so many reasons I am introducing new
legislation, the Pregnant Women Support Act. With this bill it is my
fervent hope that a new dialog, a kind of common ground, will emerge on
how we can reduce abortion by offering pregnant women real choices and
real help.
Let me outline a couple of provisions of the bill. This bill will,
first of all, assist pregnant and parenting teens to finish high school
and prepare for college or vocational training. Next, it will help
pregnant college students stay in school, offering them counseling as
well as assistance with continuing their education, parenting support
classes, and also childcare assistance.
Third, it will provide counseling and shelter to pregnant women in
abusive relationships who may be fearful of continuing a pregnancy in a
crisis situation. It will establish a national toll-free hotline and a
public awareness campaign to offer women support and knowledge about
options and resources available to them when they face an unplanned
pregnancy.
It will give women free sonogram examinations by providing grants for
the purchase of ultrasound equipment. It will provide parents with
information about genetic disability testing, including support for
parents who receive a diagnosis of Downs syndrome. It will ensure that
pregnant women receive prenatal and postnatal care by eliminating
pregnancy as a preexisting condition in the individual health care
market, and also eliminating waiting periods for women with prior
coverage.
It will establish a nurse home visitation program for pregnant and
first-time mothers as an eligible benefit under Medicaid and the State
Children's Health Insurance Program, what we refer to here as SCHIP. We
know it means Children's Health Insurance.
One example of this home visitation program is the nurse-family
partnership, an evidence-based program and national model in which
nurses mentor young first-time and primarily low-income mothers,
establishing a supportive relationship with both mother and child.
Studies have shown this program to be both cost effective and hugely
successful in terms of life outcomes for both mothers and their
children. This legislation will increase funding for the Women, Infants
and Children Program, known as the WIC Program, providing nutrition
assistance, counseling and education, obesity prevention, breastfeeding
support, prenatal and pediatric health care referrals, immunization
screening and referral, and a host of other services for mothers and
their children.
Next, it will expand nutritional support for low-income parents by
increasing the income eligibility levels for food stamps. It will
increase funding for the childcare and development block grant program,
which is the primary source of Federal funding for childcare assistance
for low-income parents.
Finally, it will provide support for adoption as an alternative to
abortion and make the adoption tax credit permanent. I introduced this
bill with the deepest conviction that we can indeed find common ground.
I believe we can transform this debate by focusing upon the issues that
unite us and not the issues that divide us.
As most people know who cover the Senate and understand what happens
here and where candidates stand, most people know this already, but I
am a pro-life Democrat, and I believe life begins at conception and
ends when we draw our last breath.
I also believe the role of Government is to protect, enrich, and
value life for everyone, at every moment, from beginning to end. I
believe we as a nation
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have to do more to support women and their children when they are most
vulnerable, during pregnancy and early childhood.
I also strongly support, and have for years, family planning
programs, because they avoid sometimes those dark moments when a woman,
often alone, faces a pregnancy she feels she cannot handle. I also
support family planning programs precisely because they reduce the
number of abortions.
But that is not the issue I address today. Today, with this bill, I
am focused on the woman who is pregnant, and I am asking myself, and I
think Congress and the administration, as any Congress and any
administration has to ask themselves this fundamental question: For
that woman who is facing that crisis in her life, we have to ask
ourselves, as a Congress and as a society: What more can we do? What
more can we do to help her? That is the question we must continually
ask. I think if we ask that question today, the answer, unfortunately,
is: Not enough.
We are not doing enough. I believe there is more common ground in
America than we might realize on these questions, if only we focus on
how we can truly help and support that woman who wishes to carry her
pregnancy to term and how we can give her and her child what they need
to begin healthy and productive lives together.
For the past 34 years, unfortunately, the issue of abortion has been
used mostly as a way to divide people, even as the number of abortions
remains and still remains unacceptably high. We have to find a better
way.
I believe this legislation, the Pregnant Women Support Act, is a part
of that better way. I believe we must look toward real solutions to the
issue of abortion by targeting the underlying factors that often lead
women to make the decision to have an abortion. This is precisely what
this act, the Pregnant Women Support Act, will do.
I really believe when it comes to this issue of helping a pregnant
woman, we need to consider what our obligations are. I think we can
state it very simply: We need to walk in solidarity with her, in her
pregnancy, especially when it is an unplanned pregnancy, and we need to
support her and give her all the help we can at this time in her life.
That is exactly what this bill does for women who may find themselves
in a position where they are facing one of the most difficult
situations in their life. The woman who has no one to turn to for
advice, for counsel, or for support, we have got to be there for her at
that moment and for a long time thereafter.
I truly believe there are few things more terrifying than the
prospect of supporting another human being when you have no support of
your own. Unfortunately, far too many women face that decision, face
that crisis.
So I believe reducing the number of abortions should not be a
partisan issue. It should not pit Republicans against Democrats. So
what do I seek? I seek common ground, and I ask my colleagues on both
sides of the aisle to join me in seeking real solutions that will unite
us in providing life with dignity, before--before--and after the birth
of a child, for a pregnant woman, for her family, and for her child.
Surely, we must all agree that no woman should ever have to face the
crisis of an unplanned pregnancy all alone.
____________________