[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15820-15823]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            REAUTHORIZE CHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. O'Halleran) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. O'HALLERAN. Mr. Speaker, as a Member of Congress, as a father, 
and as a grandfather, nothing I do is more important than ensuring 
every child in

[[Page 15821]]

Arizona and America has the opportunity to live up to their God-given 
potential. No matter where they live, kids deserve to grow up healthy, 
with every chance to succeed.
  That is why it is beyond unacceptable that, for the first time ever, 
Congress missed the deadline to reauthorize the Children's Health 
Insurance Program.
  For decades, CHIP has been a bipartisan program and has been 
reauthorized with broad support, until now. It has now been 11 days 
since CHIP expired. This is an outrage for children across the Nation 
who depend on the affordable, quality care they receive, thanks to 
CHIP. It is especially troubling for Arizona.
  Arizona has had the unfortunate distinction of being one of the worst 
States for healthcare access for children. Until last year, it was the 
only State in the entire Nation without an active Children's Health 
Insurance Program.
  Arizona froze CHIP KidsCare program in 2010. At its height, the 
waiting list for coverage after the freeze topped 100,000. I repeat: 
the list topped 100,000 because of a freeze put on by the State of 
Arizona.
  Two years ago, Congress reauthorized CHIP and included enhanced match 
rate funding for States under the Affordable Care Act. Thanks to 
advocates on the ground and with bipartisan support in our State 
legislature, this enhanced funding finally paved the way for our State 
to reopen KidsCare.
  Last year, KidsCare began enrolling children--over 23,000 so far. We 
have just begun the hard work of educating and reaching out to the 
working families who qualify for coverage.
  Arizona is one of a handful of States, as you can see here in this 
chart in blue, that would run out of Federal funds to cover children by 
December of this year, absent congressional action.
  Families in these States are the most at risk for losing critical 
access to care, until Congress steps up to the plate and passes a 
robust reauthorization with enhanced rate funding.
  I have met and heard from many of these families and their providers. 
I know what is it stake for them.
  Cate Arnquist is a mother from Tucson, Arizona, whose 8-year-old son, 
Zachary, was approved for coverage through KidsCare last month. This is 
a huge relief to Cate, who recently moved to Arizona with her husband 
and works at a local elementary school. Cate said:

       It's important for me to know that if I need to take him to 
     the doctor, I will be able to take him. As a parent, your 
     kids are always your biggest priority. I think every parent 
     wants to make sure their kids are healthy.

  Cate, I couldn't agree with you more. Kids like Zachary deserve to 
know that their elected officials here in Congress are looking out for 
them.
  Graciela is a working single mom who lives in Phoenix. Her 17-year-
old daughter, who suffers from high blood pressure, relies on KidsCare 
coverage. Graciela says:

       I just pray and ask everybody who is behind CHIP to think 
     about it. They don't know how hard it is sometimes when you 
     are a parent and you don't know what to do. Should I put a 
     plate of food on the table or should I take my kid to the 
     doctor?

  These are questions no parent in Arizona or in America should have to 
ask themselves. Doctors in our community agree.
  A pediatrician practicing in Gilbert, Arizona, shared an important 
story with us about a family with five children in her practice. The 
father works as a grocer, but makes $20 too much to qualify for 
Medicaid. That is $20.
  One of the children has significant developmental delays and another 
child has a serious neurological disease. After the youngest child was 
born, it became clear that he most likely had the neurological disease 
as well.
  The doctor referred this child for evaluation, but the family was 
unable to take him to the neurologist because they could not afford the 
office visits and diagnostic testing necessary. Had KidsCare been open 
at the time, the family could have applied for coverage, since they 
qualified, based on their income.
  This story and our experience in Arizona should be a cautionary tale 
for the rest of the States who may freeze their program if Congress 
fails to reauthorize CHIP now.
  No family should be put at risk when they need help for their kids. 
Working families like these are doing their best to make ends meet and 
raise healthy kids.
  Reauthorizing CHIP isn't just the right thing to do morally, but it 
is the smart, economic decision for our communities. I understood that 
when I was a Republican State legislator and fought for KidsCare, and I 
understand it now here in Congress.
  We all know that when children have meaningful access to quality, 
affordable, comprehensive healthcare coverage, our schools, families, 
and our State's bottom line all win.
  Healthy kids have a better shot in school and grow up to be healthy 
adults. When we invest in them, when we invest in their families, we 
are investing in their futures and our future.
  We must do better. Instead of playing partisan games and spending 
time on bills that make coverage and affordability worse for Americans, 
we need to make CHIP reauthorization front and center of our focus.
  While I am pleased that the Senate Finance Committee and the House 
Energy and Commerce Committee have started to take up action, it is 
past time to get a robust bill to the President's desk.
  CHIP has long been a bipartisan program, and I will keep working with 
anyone, regardless of office or party, to make sure our kids have the 
care they deserve. They are counting on us. We cannot let them down.
  I am pleased to be joined this evening by my colleagues who are 
committed to fighting for kids in our communities. I want to thank them 
for joining this Special Order hour to fight for CHIP and a strong 
reauthorization process.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. 
Cicilline).
  Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for 
yielding and for his leadership in organizing this Special Order hour.
  There is no more sacred responsibility that we have than to ensure 
that the children in this country have access to quality, affordable 
healthcare. So I rise this evening to speak in support of the vital 
Children's Health Insurance Program, also known as CHIP.
  As you know, Mr. Speaker, CHIP authorization expired on September 30, 
2017--this past September. This program assures that 9 million 
children, including 27,000 children and pregnant women in my home State 
of Rhode Island, are provided with low-cost health insurance, which 
covers essential services such as routine checkups, immunizations, 
doctor visits, prescriptions, dental and vision care, inpatient and 
outpatient hospital care, laboratory and x-ray services, and emergency 
services.
  This historically bipartisan program has been successful in lowering 
the percentage of children who are uninsured from nearly 14 percent 
when it started in 1997 to 4.5 percent in 2015. Historic achievements.
  If not extended by Congress soon, many States will no longer be able 
to fund the program and will begin limiting coverage, some as early as 
the end of this year.
  In fact, the Kaiser Family Foundation recently concluded that, 
without an extension of CHIP, ``States would face budget pressures, 
children would lose coverage, and implementation of program changes 
could result in increased costs and administrative burden for States as 
well as confusion for families.''
  If not extended by Congress soon, many States will no longer be able 
to fund the program and will begin limiting coverage.
  Congress must also act with urgency to extend and reauthorize the 
other programs that were enacted in the Medicare Access and CHIP 
Reauthorization Act of 2015, including extending funding for community 
health centers; the Personal Responsibility Education Program; the 
rural and Medicare-dependent hospitals program; Teaching Health 
Centers; Maternal, Infant, and

[[Page 15822]]

Early Childhood Home Visiting Program; and the Special Diabetes Program 
for type 1 diabetes and for Indians.
  These critical programs, as well as CHIP, are vital to the American 
healthcare system, and they support access to high-quality, affordable 
care.
  I want to again thank the gentleman from Arizona for providing this 
Special Order. This is urgent and should be an urgent priority for the 
Congress of the United States to reauthorize this critical program to 
absolutely insist that children--as I said, 9 million children across 
this country--have access to quality, affordable healthcare, including 
27,000 children and pregnant women in my home State.
  Democrats are urging our Republican colleagues to reauthorize this 
bill immediately so that the families who are so anxious about whether 
or not they will continue to have the ability to access quality, 
affordable healthcare can rest comfortably and know that this work is 
done.
  I thank the gentleman again for his leadership and for yielding to me 
on this very important issue.
  Mr. O'HALLERAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Rhode Island 
for caring about our Nation's children.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).
  Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I think it is a new low for this Congress to 
allow the critical and bipartisan Children's Health Insurance Program 
to expire. This program is 20 years old, and this has never happened, 
where we have allowed the basic safety net healthcare program for 
children to expire.
  We hear over and over again, Mr. Speaker, you talk about the ne'er do 
well, lazy ones of our constituents who are poor and don't want to 
work. But, Mr. Speaker, these are children who are ineligible for work 
and unavailable to take care of themselves. We are destroying the 
health safety net for children.
  But it is not that we haven't had time to extend CHIP. We have 
renamed post offices. We have renamed a highway. We have advanced the 
House budget reconciliation riddled with unpaid tax cuts for the 
wealthy, including the repeal of the estate tax, which alone would 
increase our deficit by $269 billion by 2025. Mr. Speaker, that is 
billion with a B.
  Are Republicans in this body trying to solve the budget crisis and 
our deficit problem by cutting CHIP?
  I don't think so.
  Even more, Mr. Speaker, last week, we spent a considerable amount of 
time debating the 20-week abortion ban. We heard passionate speeches 
about how important it was to preserve the life of fetuses. We spent 
all this time and speaker after speaker making emotional demands on 
this body that we restrict women's body autonomy, but we spent no time 
reauthorizing the program for little Junior, once he crowns and is 
born--the basic healthcare that he needs immediately exiting the womb.

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. Speaker, simply put, it is hypocritical for you to say that life 
ends as soon as the umbilical cord is cut. And, Mr. Speaker, your 
actions prove it.
  You know, I am of the mindset of one of our news reporters, Rachel 
Maddow, that we ought to just watch what you do and not what you say.
  Almost 9 million children depend on CHIP for healthcare; 9 million 
children from low- to moderate-income families who will lose access to 
vaccinations, routine checkups, dental care, mental healthcare, 
prescriptions, and some of these children are profoundly disabled.
  Mr. Speaker, what is going to happen to the 24 percent of the 
children enrolled in CHIP that have special healthcare needs, including 
asthma and learning disabilities?
  The health of our children depends on this program, yet, Mr. Speaker, 
all you can do to muster up a reauthorization for CHIP is to fund it by 
increasing Medicare premiums--Medicare, a program designed for people 
over 65--and cutting the Prevention and Public Health Fund.
  All you can do, Mr. Speaker, is to pit old people against our babies 
in order to provide basic healthcare to children. This sounds really 
Faustian, and it is unimaginable, yet this is the reality that we are 
working with.
  Mr. Speaker, it is now time to put these politics aside and to 
reauthorize CHIP now for 5 years. This is a disgrace not only in this 
Nation, but internationally. I, as an American, don't want to be judged 
by putting our kids last.
  Mr. O'HALLERAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from 
Wisconsin for her comments.
  Mr. Speaker, I am kind of new to this body, but when I came here, I 
came with the same intention as I did when I first got into the Arizona 
State Legislature. One of the first issues I worked on was this 
program, a program that helped kids stay healthy, a program so that 
they could be successful at school, a program that is imperative. Yet, 
today, millions of people around this country, millions of families 
around this country are asking themselves: What are they going to do 
about my children's health? What is going to happen? Who is going to be 
there for my child?
  When I was a police officer, I had, sadly, the ability to see people 
in poverty day in and day out, what it meant to their families, but 
especially what sick children look like, what it means to see children 
taken out of homes in ambulances instead of having preventative care, 
what it means for a child to have to be in a hospital instead of having 
had the ability to have preventative care, what it means to a child 
with disabilities to have to go through that process and not have the 
physical therapy that is needed.
  This happened time and time again before CHIP became reality. I don't 
think America wants to go back there. I think America wants to move 
forward and make sure our children are healthy and able to withstand 
the issues in our society that lead us to make sure that they do.
  I cannot understand, for the life of me, why we would keep these 
families--it is 11 days now. It is going to mean many more. We will 
have to find some level of agreement. Yet, as was just mentioned by the 
gentlewoman from Wisconsin, we are funding this by taking money away 
from the elderly, from those also in need, from those also at risk.
  I have to say that when I patrolled the streets of Chicago, I did so 
to make sure that people were saved and safe. And I can't believe that 
I have come to this body and found out that we are willing to keep 
these families waiting, we are willing to sit back and not understand 
the core issues of what it means to those families to have to suffer 
through this process of the unknown of their child's future healthcare.
  I have to say that this is an issue that most Americans and most of 
this body agree to. I don't know why we have gone down this path of 
taking money--or thinking of taking money away from the elderly. It is 
wrong. But I do know that we should get this dealt with quickly and 
make sure the families in America that need it can provide for their 
children's health.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to Representative Langevin, the gentleman from 
Rhode Island.
  Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for 
yielding. I appreciate all his time and effort he is putting into 
bringing attention to this vital issue. It is an honor to join him this 
evening as we highlight the imminent need to pass a full 
reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program.
  Now, I represent the great State of Rhode Island, a State with over 
27,000 children and pregnant women at risk of losing healthcare if CHIP 
is not fully funded. It is deeply troubling to me and many of my 
constituents, my colleagues in government; and we fought hard over the 
years to make sure that we did better by our young people, by the most 
vulnerable, and by pregnant women in making sure that they had the 
healthcare coverage that they desperately need and deserve.
  Now, in Rhode Island, the lack of a reauthorization endangers $26 
million in Federal funds that support this vulnerable population, many 
of whom will

[[Page 15823]]

not otherwise have comprehensive coverage. This is particularly 
frustrating because congressional Republicans knew that CHIP funding 
would expire on September 30. They had ample time to fix this problem 
in a bipartisan way and have chosen not to.
  Instead of proactively crafting legislation to ensure 9 million low-
income children and families maintain access to affordable, high-
quality healthcare, Republicans focused their efforts on gutting the 
Affordable Care Act to the exclusion of everything else.
  Now, in the service of their political priority to eliminate coverage 
for 23 million, they are passing on an opportunity to govern on 
multiple healthcare fronts. Rather than work to find meaningful 
bipartisan solutions, Republicans still seek ways of systematically 
unraveling ACA protections and have only offered untenable options to 
offset the cost of CHIP. That is no way to govern responsibly or to 
even remotely do it in a bipartisan way, which they could do.
  Now, their plan to pay for healthcare for one population by stripping 
access to healthcare from another is wrong. This approach of robbing 
Peter to pay Paul does nothing to build a foundation for a healthier 
future, nor does it protect the communities with sufficient healthcare 
access today.
  Proposing to slash the ACA's Prevention and Public Health Fund and 
creating a greater financial burden on seniors by suggesting 
destructive Medicare changes are not acceptable ways to bring Democrats 
to the table and pass a CHIP reauthorization with bipartisan support. 
Which, by the way, I am sure my colleagues have mentioned as they were 
speaking tonight, when CHIP was first authorized, it was done 
collaboratively in a bipartisan way at a contentious time in Congress, 
back when it was first enacted. But they found a way to do the right 
thing for vulnerable individuals, particularly our children, and we 
need to come together again.
  We have a responsibility to move quickly, to ensure our children 
continue to have access to high-quality, affordable coverage. States 
like Rhode Island deserve to know that we will support the efforts to 
provide for the children in the State. The health professionals who 
treat these children deserve more certainty. Most importantly, the 
children who benefit from CHIP deserve much better than to be 
threatened with coverage termination because my colleagues in the 
majority can't set aside their political ambitions and goals.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to again thank my colleague for raising an 
alarm bell on this issue, calling attention and focusing the American 
people on the need to reauthorize CHIP.
  We take great pride in Rhode Island that over the years we have built 
a very strong program to cover vulnerable children and pregnant women. 
We have been leaders in the country in having a very low rate of 
uninsured. Going back even before the ACA was enacted, we had a model 
program with our Rite Care and Rite Share program. There were hard-
fought battles that moved the ball forward for providing better and 
more responsible health coverage for the people who need it and deserve 
it the most.
  We need to come together now in a bipartisan way to make sure that 
CHIP is reauthorized. We cannot let this program fail. We cannot fail 
our children, our most vulnerable populations. We can come together in 
a bipartisan way. Democrats stand ready to do just that, come together 
in a bipartisan way to reauthorize CHIP, just as it had been authorized 
in a bipartisan way when it was first created.
  Now, I know that there are many of my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle who care as passionately about covering low-income children, 
providing affordable healthcare, doing the right thing by our children, 
and I look forward to reaching out across the aisle to do just that. 
Let's do this in a bipartisan way. Let's do the right thing and put 
partisan politics aside and cover our children.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank again Mr. O'Halleran for his leadership on this 
vital issue, and I look forward to continuing to work with him as we 
reauthorize CHIP, hopefully in the very near future. Again, we got to 
do this together.
  Mr. O'HALLERAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Rhode 
Island not only for his discussion today, but also for all his work on 
behalf of the children of America. I think that his record speaks for 
itself, and it is obvious that what we just heard came from his heart. 
So I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
  I asked my fellow colleagues, when they start to work on this bill 
again--hopefully, they do it in a speedy fashion--that when they wake 
up in the morning, they think of what it means to have their child 
potentially without healthcare, what it means to have the unknown that 
we don't know if next month or the month later they will lose that 
coverage because Congress has failed to address the issue that they 
have all agreed on for 20 years. We have to and we must find a way to 
come to agreement.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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