[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 37 (Tuesday, March 3, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H2888-H2889]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I wanted to talk about health care reform 
and start off by mentioning that, in my opinion, in the last month or 
so since President Barack Obama has taken office, more has been done 
under his auspices in terms of health care reform than probably has 
been done in the last 10 years. I specifically would mention the 
SCHIP--children's health care expansion--and those health initiatives, 
those health care reform initiatives that are in the economic recovery 
package. They are significant for many reasons.
  First of all, if you look at the SCHIP, or the children's health care 
initiative, we have on the books or we had before this initiative for 
about 10 years a program that allowed working parents who did not 
receive health care on the job through their employers to be able to 
receive it through the State. These were people who were working but 
who were not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. Yet, if they went out 
and tried to buy private insurance for their children and for 
themselves, they essentially were not able to because the private 
market is too expensive.

                              {time}  1045

  And so about 12 years ago, Democrats and Republicans, on a bipartisan 
basis, got together and set up the SCHIP children's health initiative, 
the Federal Government giving the States money to cover these kids in 
certain categories, maybe 200 percent of poverty or, in some cases, 
even as high as 300 percent of poverty. It worked.
  About 7 million children who did not have health insurance were 
covered, and we decided as Democrats--and we tried to get some 
Republicans and actually did get some Republicans to support us--that 
we needed to expand it by another 4 or 5 million kids who were eligible 
for the program but were not receiving the benefits, either because the 
States didn't have the money or because they couldn't reach them 
through their outreach programs.
  So one of the first things that was done by this new Congress was to 
pass an SCHIP expansion bill. Actually, it had a two-thirds majority 
vote here in the House of Representatives--over 40 Republicans joined 
with Democrats--and President Obama signed the bill just a few weeks 
ago.
  We know it's going to work. We know it's going to do a lot to expand 
health insurance for kids who do not have it, and that makes sense 
because the bottom line is that if people have health insurance, then 
they go to a doctor more frequently. They get preventive care. They 
don't have to go in an emergency room. They don't get sicker, which 
ultimately causes the Federal Government and the State government more 
money.
  Let me talk about the economic recovery package. In the economic 
recovery package, there are a number of health care reform initiatives. 
First of all, there's money that goes back to the States, about $80- to 
$90 billion, to help them enroll people on Medicaid. Because of the 
recession, because more people now do not have a job and, therefore, 
lose their health insurance, the Medicaid rolls have expanded, but 
States can't afford to expand the Medicaid rolls and, in many cases, 
were already starting to limit who would be eligible for Medicaid. But 
now, the Federal Government is giving the States essentially about $80- 
to $90 billion to help them defray that cost so that anyone who's 
eligible for Medicaid would be able to receive it.
  In addition to that, if you were employed and you lost your job, we 
have a system now called COBRA, which is an acronym, where if you do 
lose your job, you can pay the full cost of the health insurance that 
your employer was providing you and continue to have your existing 
health insurance that you had on the job for another 18 months. But the 
problem is you have to pay out of pocket 100 percent, actually 102 
percent because of the administrative costs, because your employer is 
not contributing anymore. So, with the economic recovery package, the 
Federal Government now will pay 65 percent of the cost of COBRA which 
makes it a lot more affordable for those who are eligible for COBRA.
  But beyond that, there are major reforms in the economic recovery 
package in health care, in many significant ways, not just the money. 
For example, there is a major initiative on preventive care. There's a 
major initiative on wellness, to basically teach people about staying 
healthy so they don't get sick and cost the system a lot of money. 
There's also $20 billion for health information technology, so that 
hospitals and doctors can upgrade their systems and, rather than using 
paper, have all their records done electronically. This saves the 
system money.
  What President Obama is trying to do in the economic recovery package 
is

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basically lay the groundwork, if you will, for doing health care 
differently. If the emphasis is on prevention, if the emphasis is on 
wellness, if the emphasis is on new technologies that bring costs down 
because you can do things more effectively, then not only do you have 
less mistakes and a more efficient system, but you have a system that 
ultimately costs less money.

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