SCHIP Shortfall

SCHIP SHORTFALL

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is an interesting time to close a congressional session. We are about to consider a major spending bill, hundreds of billions of dollars, and a major tax bill that will have an impact on millions of Americans and scores of interest groups and businesses. It is interesting to see what the priorities are in the closing moments. We know that there will be many groups, particularly among businesses, that will be benefited by this tax bill. But it is interesting to me that in the list of priorities, sadly, there is a group that we are ignoring. That group, of course, is the children of this country, the children who don't have health insurance.

Illinois started an ambitious program last year to make sure all kids in Illinois have health care insurance. It is surely the right thing to do. Most uninsured children with asthma never see a doctor until they are hospitalized with an acute attack. One study found that kids without health care are 25 percent more likely to miss school. Another found that one in five children without health coverage needed glasses to see the chalkboard, but they didn't have any.

It is certainly wise to give these children health insurance. One in four uninsured children uses the emergency room as their regular source of medical care. The Florida Healthy Kids Corporation reports that emergency room visits dropped 70 percent when uninsured children were given the opportunity to see a doctor in an office.

Illinois's All Kids Program is ambitious, and it is working. But we can't do it alone. In 1997, the Federal Government made its first downpayment on a program for States to help make sure children have access to health care. The State Children's Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, began when Congress and the White House agreed that children in America should be able to see a doctor when they are sick, when they need to buy glasses to see the chalkboard or when they need to be protected from infectious disease. Today, 9 years later, after the first Federal payments were delivered, 10 million children in America are without health insurance.

In Illinois, we are providing basic, bare-bones health care for 122,700 low-income children through the SCHIP program. The State has to match the Federal money, but we couldn't do it without the Federal help. This year the Federal payments will run out before the bills are paid. In fact, we are told the SCHIP payment will be 60 percent of what the Federal payment needs to be to maintain the current caseload, not to expand it and bring in more uninsured children, just to cover those children who, without SCHIP, would have no health insurance.

On Tuesday morning, the package that we are considering today included a bipartisan, no-cost provision to reallocate Federal SCHIP money so that Illinois and a dozen other States would be able to provide basic health insurance coverage for the kids already in the program. Twenty-four hours later, on Wednesday morning, after negotiations took place in the middle of the night, the SCHIP provision was gone. A lot of other things remained. There are still lots of tax provisions in there for special interest groups and businesses. Some of them are worthy. Some of them I support. But it is interesting that the first casualty of negotiation turned out to be 10 million uninsured children. They were left behind. Suddenly, low-income children in at least 11 States were dropped from this tax extender package. Merry Christmas from the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives to these poor children who, because of our inaction and refusal to acknowledge the need for this program, have decided not to fund it.

Suddenly the rug was pulled out from under 73,620 low-income kids in my State. SCHIP payments to Illinois to take care of these kids will fall short by $150 million. We made a promise to help these kids 9 years ago. These kids are innocent children. All they are asking for is the basics--the chance to go to a doctor, a chance to get the shots they need so they can avoid serious illnesses, a chance to get the glasses they need to be good students in the classroom, just the basics. This Congress, in its efforts to adjourn, to go home and enjoy the holidays with our own children and our own families, has forgotten some kids across America who need help in the SCHIP program.

I urge my colleagues not to give up on this issue. When we start to debate this tax extender bill in the hours ahead, I hope all my colleagues from affected States will come to the floor and will call to the attention of every Member of the Senate and the House of Representatives how we have failed in meeting this priority.

I sincerely hope that if we are unable to restore these funds in these closing hours, that this will indeed be a high priority of the new Congress when it resumes its work in January of next year.

I yield the floor.

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