[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 4 (Monday, January 8, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S63-S64]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  Children's Health Insurance Program

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to talk about another matter that 
will be before us in the days ahead. It should not be before us as it 
should have been done many months ago. In fact, if you want to count it 
by days, it should have been done about 100 days ago, as we have heard. 
That is the Children's Health Insurance Program, known by the acronym 
CHIP.
  Most Americans know what the CHIP program is. It is a program that 
became Federal law a little more than 20 years ago in order to provide 
an opportunity for healthcare for those families whose incomes were a 
little bit too high, maybe, to have their children enrolled in Medicaid 
but those families did not have their children's healthcare paid for by 
their employers. You had a lot of families--a lot of middle-income 
families or families near middle income--who were caught in between and 
didn't have opportunities for healthcare. So CHIP was passed. For the 
most part, it was bipartisan. All of these years now--decades later--it 
remains bipartisan, but it is not reauthorized. Probably, the only two 
numbers I will get into tonight are 9 and 180. What do I mean by that? 
I will start with Pennsylvania.
  So ``180'' means 180,000. That is the number of children, roughly, 
who were enrolled in the Children's Health Insurance Program as of 
December of 2017. If you look at it over the course of a year--of 
children becoming eligible and then maybe moving off of CHIP to some 
other insurance or having other changes--in Pennsylvania, roughly, in 
the last year, 340,000 children benefited, at one time or another, but 
the monthly number was 180,000 children just in

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Pennsylvania, and ``9'' was representative of the 9 million children 
across the country who were enrolled in CHIP. When we have all of these 
debates about what has to get done in the next couple of days and 
between now and the middle part of January, I hope that 9 million 
number will be uppermost in people's minds. Included within that are 
180,000 children in Pennsylvania.
  This is really not about a number or a program. It is about real 
people, real people's lives. Every Member of the Senate has a 
constituent he could tell a story about or hundreds, if not thousands, 
of stories. I will just tell one tonight about a mom whom I met not too 
long ago, just about a week ago, Jennie Sheeks. Jennie is from Upper 
Makefield, PA. That is Bucks County, Southeastern Pennsylvania, just 
north of the city of Philadelphia.
  Jennie told us about her son Kam-au. Kam-au is 8 years old, and he is 
enrolled in the Children's Health Insurance Program. His brother and 
his sister have special needs and are Medicaid beneficiaries. So, in 
one family, you have an example of one child, thankfully, benefiting 
from the CHIP program and then two other members of that same family 
benefiting either from CHIP or the Medicaid Program. Thank goodness 
those programs are in place. Without CHIP and Medicaid, Jennie said her 
children would be uninsured because, even though both Jennie and her 
husband work full time, covering the whole family on her plan is too 
expensive.
  This is another example of working families who depend upon these 
programs for their children. They need these programs. These programs 
aren't theoretical. They aren't some far-off Washington debate about 
timing and leverage and negotiations and back-and-forth. This is about 
their real lives right now. As I said, the CHIP program should have 
been reauthorized 100 days ago, and it is inexcusable that it is not 
being done now.
  We all left here right after the tax vote. Everybody went back to his 
home State and, I am sure, had a great holiday season. Unfortunately, 
even though there was a little bit of a patch--a tiny, little patch 
made for this program--a lot of people left here with no worries at all 
and went back to their States and communities and neighborhoods, where 
there were a lot of other people worrying about whether they were going 
to get the kind of coverage for their children they should have a right 
to expect.
  Back to Jennie and her son. What are they going to do without the 
Children's Health Insurance Program? I cannot imagine--and few Senators 
or House Members can imagine--how Jennie and her son will get from here 
to there without having the Children's Health Insurance Program. I 
cannot imagine what it must be like for Jennie to worry about how she 
will pay for her son's care if he loses CHIP coverage. No parent should 
have that kind of stress in his life when there is an existing program 
that covers 9 million kids that should be reauthorized.
  When he was a public official, my father used to talk about people 
who had led lives of real struggle. We have all known them in our 
lives--people who have to work every day just to make ends meet in 
order to provide for their families and get through another day, 
another week, another month, another pay period. He used to refer to 
those Americans as leading ``quietly triumphant lives.'' My father's 
words for those who struggle--``quietly triumphant lives.''
  There are a lot of families out there who lead very difficult lives, 
and they depend sometimes on the Children's Health Insurance Program or 
Medicaid or some other program just to get through another week, and I 
think about Jennie and parents like her who have to overcome so much to 
help their children--to love them, to care for them, to protect them, 
and to educate them. Even the most loving, caring, hard-working, and 
dedicated parent cannot provide the protections and the care health 
insurance coverage and quality healthcare can provide, the kind of 
quality healthcare from professionals that comes to that child because 
he or she has the protection of health insurance. Those parents--no 
matter how much they work, no matter how good they are to their 
children--sometimes cannot provide something as basic, obviously, as 
healthcare and, of course, the insurance coverage that makes it 
possible.
  We have legislation ready today, the KIDS Act, that is bipartisan. It 
has already moved through the Finance Committee unanimously. I don't 
think there was a single vote against it. If there was, it was not that 
loud a vote. I hope we can make these children a priority in the coming 
days, finally, at long last.
  There were a lot of deals made in the tax bill, a lot of numbers 
moved around to get the tax bill done. I understand that is part of any 
legislation, but if a tax bill can get done in the U.S. Senate, we can 
certainly have a vote to get the Children's Health Insurance Program 
reauthorized now that it is 100 days old.
  I see the distinguished majority leader is here so I will wrap up 
tonight with the words of Jennie's son Kam-au:

       I was happy when I got health insurance because I knew I 
     could go to the doctor if I got hurt or sick. When I didn't 
     have health insurance, I was a little worried . . . I think 
     we should keep CHIP going so we can stay healthy.

  No better words were uttered or spoken about the Children's Health 
Insurance Program than Kam-au's, an 8-year-old, who said CHIP should 
stay in place so we can stay healthy.
  I agree. The American people agree. Let's get CHIP done.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:15 
p.m. tomorrow, all postcloture time on the Campbell nomination be 
considered expired and the Senate vote on confirmation of the Campbell 
nomination with no intervening action or debate; finally, that if 
confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon 
the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's 
action.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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