[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 22158]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 SCHIP

  (Mrs. BLACKBURN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak against this 
extremely flawed SCHIP bill. I support the original intent of SCHIP, 
which is to cover our moderate- to low-income children at 200 percent 
of the poverty level. Yet the bill before us today goes much further. 
It does expand the program, and it does move it from a block grant to 
an entitlement, and it moves patients towards a universal, government-
run health care that shifts patients from private care to a massive 
government entitlement program.
  And I know what runaway health care costs in a broken system look 
like. As a former member of the Tennessee Senate, I watched TennCare, 
Tennessee's statewide Medicaid-managed care service, which was granted 
under one of those waivers, I have watched this thing invoke stress, 
pain and hardship on both health care providers and consumers. It does 
not work. Someone always has to pay the bill.
  Over 10 years, also, this CHAMP bill would make $193 billion worth of 
cuts from Medicare services for our seniors. It didn't work. It is not 
going to work here.

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