Increasing Opportunity and Success for Children and Parents Through Evidence-based Home Visiting Act
Floor Speech
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First, I would like to thank Chairman Brady as well as Chairman Smith for honoring their commitment to work with me to ensure that the most needy rural communities are not neglected in this bill.
I am glad to see that the language I proposed during the committee markup last week has been included in the Smith amendment. Both my friend from Nebraska and I represent rural America, and we understand the obstacles that our rural constituents confront on a daily basis. Moreover, we both believe in the mission of the
MIECHV Program, and we see how effective it has been in both rural and urban communities. One of the reasons why the MIECHV Program is good policy is because of the program's flexibility. While models like the Nurse-Family Partnership can be successful in urban and suburban areas, other evidence-based models like HIPPY--or Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters--can be incredibly effective in rural areas that tend to have fewer resources.
This amendment language, which I offered during the committee markup, ensures that rural communities with little resources are not skipped over. This is a simple and commonsense fix that has bipartisan support as well as the support from the Home Visiting Coalition.
While I appreciate my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for working with me to fix this language, I have to say that I am disappointed that none of the other commonsense amendments offered by my Democratic colleagues were accepted during the markup.
For years, the MIECHV Program has enjoyed bipartisan support, but I am afraid that Republican changes in the underlying legislation we are considering today, I believe, will hurt the MIECHV recipients in the long-term viability of the program.
While I oppose the final passage of the underlying bill, I, again, want to thank my friend from Nebraska, as well as Chairman Brady, for accepting my markup amendment language, and I urge my colleagues to support the Smith amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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