[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 192 (Monday, November 27, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7326-S7327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Healthcare

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, right now, as we all return from 
Thanksgiving--some of the American people did not have to work over 
Thanksgiving weekend, but many, many people in this country do and 
struggle and continue to work two jobs--and as Congress returns from 
Thanksgiving, the priorities of this Congress are becoming pretty 
darned clear to the American people. People want to know the answer to 
a fundamental question. In this body we all stand up for election every 
6 years--in some cases, a little more often--and people fundamentally 
want to know which side you are on. Are you on their side? Are you on 
the side of Wall Street or the side of corporations that outsource 
jobs?
  So the question is this: Whose side are you on? The question is this: 
Are you going to stand with multinational corporations that ship jobs 
overseas, all to pad their own executives' fat bonus checks? Are you 
going to stand with banks that rip off consumers or that steal their 
information and get off scot-free? Maybe some of their executives give 
their bonuses back, but that is about the only penalty they pay. Are 
you going to stand with American workers who have been working too hard 
for too long for too little pay and who are just looking to catch a 
break? Are you going to stand with children whose parents work two jobs 
to put food on the table when, unfortunately, both jobs that they work 
do not pay for health insurance? These are the choices we face.
  Right now, the leader of the Senate--the majority leader, who works 
in that office down the hall, the majority leader back in that office 
there--negotiates with lobbyists, negotiates healthcare bills, and 
writes healthcare bills in the back room with drug company lobbyists 
and insurance lobbyists. Now he has written a tax bill in the back 
room. We voted on it last week in committee, but it just keeps 
changing. That is all done in the back room with Senator McConnell, the 
Republican leader, and his lobbyist friends from corporate America--
with the corporate America that ships jobs overseas, with the Wall 
Street banks that fleece Main Street taxpayers, and with other 
corporations, which are the drug companies and oil companies and the 
Koch brothers and all of that. These are the choices that we face. The 
leaders of the Senate have made it really clear whose side they are 
on--period.
  While the Senate spends its time on a bill to cut taxes for 
corporations that send jobs overseas--that is the bill that Senator 
McConnell is negotiating, is writing, is drafting with his lobbyist 
friends in that office down the hall--children here in America, pure 
and simple--there is no other way to say it--are about to be kicked off 
of their health insurance through the Children's Health Insurance 
Program. As soon as this week, families of young children are going to 
get letters in the mail that will bring devastating news--that their 
children will lose their health insurance--period. There are 209,000 of 
them who live in my State of Ohio--209,000 of them alone.
  This is what this program is. It was founded more than two decades 
ago. Senator Hatch--I give him credit as chairman of the Finance 
Committee--doesn't seem as interested, frankly, in this bill today as 
he was when he started, when he wrote the bill, because it has passed 
out of his committee, and Senator McConnell is too busy to put this 
bill on the floor so that we can pass it.
  The bill works this way: If there is a family and the parents lose 
their insurance, as many families do, the children still get insurance. 
That is why 209,000 children--tens of thousands of families in my 
State--rely on the Children's Health Insurance Program. But this fall, 
because this Congress is too busy giving tax cuts to rich people, 
because this Congress is too busy giving all kinds of breaks to the 
Nation's banks, because this Congress is too busy doing the bidding of 
the drug companies and the health insurance companies and the bidding 
of the oil companies, this Congress let CHIP expire.

  States are beginning to run out of money for CHIP. States are 
preparing to shut down this lifeline for 9 million children in Kansas, 
Ohio, Florida, and all over the country. Folks in this body--don't 
forget, we all get our health insurance funded by taxpayers, but we 
haven't done our job. As a result, families of 209,000 children in Ohio 
and 9 million children in the United States are going to pay the price.
  Think about how devastating it would be to get that letter in the 
mail. It is already an expensive and stressful time of year. Parents 
are worried about all kinds of things--higher heating bills, visits to 
their families for the holidays, the cost of childcare when kids take 
off from school for the holidays. They are scraping together what they 
can for gifts. They are already stressed enough. Imagine having to tell 
your daughter: I am sorry, honey, Santa probably isn't bringing much 
this year. We won't have any presents under the tree.
  You try not to let the child see the worry in your eyes because you 
are wondering how you are going to afford the debt for regular checkups 
each year, or God forbid she gets an ear infection or something happens 
and she needs to go to the doctor. But, oh my gosh, no, we got this 
letter in the mail that says--and I don't know if the letter will say 
it this way, but it should--that because Congress failed to do its 
job--a bunch of elected officials who have insurance paid by taxpayers 
failed

[[Page S7327]]

to do their job to reauthorize and fund this bill so that 209,000 
children in Ohio will be protected, as well as 9 million people in the 
country--Ohio, Arizona, California, Minnesota, and Oregon are all 
expected to run out of CHIP money by the end of the year, early 
January. Some States will need to start notifying families right now 
that they could lose their coverage. Virginia will have to start 
sending out notices as early as this week. Many other States expect 
funds to run out the first of the year.
  This is not just a few children whom maybe we don't want to think 
about; this is 9 million children--209,000 children in my State, tens 
of thousands of children in Kansas, and it is hundreds of thousands of 
children in Senator Nelson's Florida. These are working families who 
don't qualify for Medicaid but can't afford private insurance. They are 
families with two working parents who often aren't lucky enough to work 
for companies that provide health insurance. They are families with 
children who have special needs. CHIP helps provide access to specialty 
providers so the kids are never faced with a situation where their 
family can't afford the therapy or the expensive prescription drugs 
they need.
  Healthcare for all of our children is something on which we ought to 
be able to come together, wouldn't you think--especially at the holiday 
season. Leading into Christmas, wouldn't you think we could agree on 
that, that we ought to take care of the Children's Health Insurance 
Program?
  There has never been a gap for funding in the CHIP program. It was 
created in a bipartisan way. Senator Kennedy, who sat over here, 
Senator Rockefeller, who sat over here, and Senator Hatch, who is still 
in this body, all worked to create this program.
  In those days, Senator Hatch said: ``As a nation, as a society, we 
have a moral responsibility'' to ensure our children have healthcare. 
We have maintained that bipartisanship ever since, until now--until 
Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell, who would rather worry about tax 
cuts for the rich, would rather worry about helping banks keep 
consumers from having their day in court, would rather worry about 
helping the Koch brothers and the drug companies. That is way more 
important than taking care of 209,000 children in Ohio. I guess it is 
more important for Senator McConnell to go back in that room and write 
a bill with his lobbyist friends from the Koch brothers, oil companies, 
drug companies, and Wall Street--all his special interest buddies. He 
can write a bill for those big tax breaks for those companies but just 
not get around to taking care of these kids.
  Two years ago, with the support of advocates all over the country, we 
extended funding for CHIP with bipartisan support. We did it for 2 more 
years. We put kids first in this body, acted early to extend CHIP so 
families wouldn't have to worry. This year, in committee--and I give 
credit to Senator Hatch in this case, as well as Senators Portman, 
Wyden, and others. We passed a 5-year extension of CHIP, and almost all 
my colleagues voted for it, but passing it out of committee and patting 
ourselves on the back doesn't get the job done.
  I ask all my colleagues who sit here--again, with health insurance 
paid for by taxpayers--for one time this Christmas season to set 
partisanship aside and actually do the right thing. Let's forget the 
tax bill for just a few days. Let's forget helping the Wall Street 
banks for a few days. Let's forget about helping the oil companies and 
billionaire contributors on whom Senator McConnell and his colleagues 
rely. Let's forget about that just for a few days, and let's take care 
of 209,000 children in Ohio and tens of thousands of children in Kansas 
and 9 million children around the country.
  My friend Bill Considine is the CEO of Akron Children's Hospital. He 
is the longest serving CEO of any children's hospital in the country. 
He said: ``The fact that this reauthorization has been delayed for 
political reasons, for shallow campaign promises, is inexcusable.'' I 
have known Bill Considine for 25 years. I don't know if he is a 
Republican or a Democrat. Certainly, I don't think he cares much about 
that. What he cares about is taking care of kids. He says that the fact 
that we are putting these children and families at risk in the country 
we live in--there are no words we can use to justify it. He is right. 
There is no way to justify Congress's negligence. We need to 
reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program this week--now.