[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Page 26131]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the Children's Health Insurance Plan 
legislation was delivered to the White House this afternoon for, I 
hope, the President's signature, but unfortunately, I fear the 
President's veto. It is unbelievable that the President would veto 
legislation that means so much to many working families in Ohio, in the 
great State of Colorado, and any of the other 48 States in our great 
Nation.
  The Children's Health Insurance Program was conceived in 1996 and 
took effect in 1997, with a Democratic President and a Republican House 
and Senate. It now insures some 6 million children in our country. 
These are the sons and daughters of working families, parents who are 
working hard, playing by the rules, paying their taxes, but they make 
too much to be on Medicaid but make too little to be able to afford 
insurance, especially if one of their children has a preexisting 
condition of any serious nature. They are making $20,000, $30,000, and 
$40,000 a year.
  The President--as Senator Grassley has pointed out in criticism--has 
said we don't want to give help to these rich children. These are 
families making $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, and as much as $50,000 or 
$60,000 a year but mostly families making less. They are struggling, 
and it is not easy to pay the bills when you make $30,000 or $40,000 a 
year, let alone pay for health care bills and health insurance.
  The President also said he doesn't want this big Government program. 
He talked about socialism, or something I don't understand. The 
President of the United States and most Members of Congress go out to 
Bethesda. That is a Government health care system. They get great 
health care at Bethesda Naval Hospital. The VA has terrific facilities, 
not just the CBOCs, community-based outreach clinics, such as in 
Mansfield, Youngstown, Lorraine, Springfield, Marion, Lima, and all 
over the State and all over this country; but the big VA hospitals in 
places such as Brecksville, Columbus, and Chillicothe, and what all 
that means.
  The President says these are kids who should be covered by private 
insurance. Sure, they should. I wish these children did have private 
insurance. But the fact is that millions of children in our country 
don't have private insurance. At relatively little cost--because most 
children don't cost much to insure--we can put them in the Children's 
Health Insurance Program.
  If the President vetoes this bill, it will immediately mean that some 
number of children--several hundred thousand--will lose their health 
insurance immediately, and it will mean a lost opportunity for 4 
million other children in Colorado, Ohio, and all over this country, to 
get health insurance. Again, these are children of working parents--
parents who are struggling and doing the best they can to make a go of 
it. All they want is health insurance for their children.
  The President is critical of the cost of the bill. This bill will 
cost about $7 billion a year, the Children's Health Insurance Plan. The 
Presiding Officer voted for it and I voted for it and it passed this 
Senate with 68 votes, with almost 20 Republicans--almost 40 percent of 
the Republicans voted for this bill in the Senate and all of the 
Democrats. This is a bipartisan bill. The House is the same way, where 
dozens of Republicans in the House voted for it.
  So it is clearly a bipartisan bill, and the President says it costs 
too much. It costs $7 billion a year in the next 5 years. What does 
that mean? In contrast, we spend in 1 week in Iraq close to $3 billion. 
So we are spending $3 billion a week in Iraq, and we want to spend $7 
billion a year to cover 4 million children--some 60 or 70 or 80 in Ohio 
would take advantage of this--and the President says no to that. He 
wants more than $3 billion additional per week in Iraq. Something is 
wrong with those priorities.
  The President has had the legislation delivered to him at the White 
House. I hope the President will reconsider some of his public comments 
and listen to middle-class families. This is one of those times when 
Government can directly help the middle class and make a difference in 
the lives of so many middle-class families who are struggling, such as 
the Demko family in Columbus.
  I just wish the President would open his mind and his ears and his 
eyes for the next few days and let's send some children, some families 
we have met, whom you have met, Mr. President, in Boulder or Denver, 
whom you met in Colorado Springs, whom I have met in Columbus, 
Cincinnati, or Dayton, or Zanesville, or Steubenville--let's invite 
some of those families to the White House, sit down with the President 
and say: Mr. President, here is what the Children's Health Insurance 
Program means to me and my family and to a lot of my neighbors. Please, 
Mr. President, sign this bill.
  I believe, because I think he is a decent person, if the President 
would open his ears, eyes, and mind to that conversation of those 
families, it would be a very different outcome. I am hopeful in the 
next couple of days that the President will sign the Children's Health 
Insurance Program. If he does not, I am confident we will override his 
veto in the Senate, and I am hopeful that enough Republicans will get 
on this bipartisan bandwagon and join the Democrats in overriding that 
veto because it will mean a stronger, more vibrant, more humane policy 
and a stronger middle class for our country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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