[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 27262]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               SCHIP BILL

  (Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina. Madam Speaker, instead of the 
reauthorization of a successful plan, the majority party is trying to 
reinvent the government health care wheel by proposing a $35 billion 
expansion of the current SCHIP plan.
  The current SCHIP plan has proven itself successful because it now 
provides approximately 6.6 million low-income children with government-
funded health care services annually. By the way, only 13 percent of 
this money will actually go to children anyway.
  If we allow the vetoed SCHIP bill to pass, the intent of the original 
SCHIP program, which is to provide health care insurance to children of 
low-income families who are unable to afford private coverage, will be 
lost.
  This bill would allow families earning an annual income $83,000 a 
year to take advantage of a program designed to help low-income, 
uninsured children.
  Voting against the SCHIP bill reflects a disagreement for the manner 
in which the health care coverage will be distributed and to whom. The 
SCHIP bill needs to be authorized, but can be and should be done in a 
fiscally responsible manner.
  I will vote to sustain the President's veto for this bill because it 
will overlook the children it was first intended for.

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