Health Care

HEALTH CARE

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Ms. CASTOR. I thank my colleague from New Jersey, who has been such a leader for the American people for access to better health care. He is absolutely right, that the President's actions don't match his words. I have also been combing through the Presidential budget proposal. One of my hometown newspapers said that the Presidential budget should begin with these words: ``Once upon a time,' as in a fairy tale. I am a mom with two young daughters at home. We do a lot of reading at night and try to get the homework done. We will do reading of fairy tales. This, what the White House has sent over, is a political fairy tale. Unfortunately, it is going to hurt a lot of folks. It is going to hurt a lot of our constituents back home. I thought we could explain that a little bit.

Oftentimes we talk in such technical terms in government. When we talk of Medicaid and people say Medicaid, sometimes they get Medicaid and Medicare mixed up.

Medicaid, these are pregnant women, infants, children in families earning about $25,000 a year, foster kids, medically needy adults, a lot of our senior citizens in nursing homes. So when you hear there are Medicaid cuts, I would like us to really put a face on that and say they are going after the most vulnerable in this country, infants, poor kids, foster kids and seniors in nursing homes.

Also the budget sent over from the White House will hurt our seniors. The White House proposes to cut Medicare. Now, I am from Florida, and a lot of folks retire down to Florida. They have worked hard all their lives, and this is really one of the only benefits that we can give them, in addition to Social Security. So what the White House budget is proposing to do is ask them to pay even more. They are asking our hardworking doctors to take a cut as well.

What that does in my community in Tampa Bay is it discourages the best doctors from participating in Medicare. You see, I want my seniors to have the best medical care. I want them to see the best doctors, and I want those good doctors to stay in the Medicare system.

This would also hurt our children, our kids back home. My colleague from New Jersey knows this very well, that under the State Children's Health Insurance Program, we have a lot of needs. The States, our local communities, the Feds, we have been doing a pretty good job. But, do you know what? We can do a whole lot better. We must do a lot better.

So it was very disappointing to receive this budget from the White House that says: Do you know what? Even though we are making such progress, and we have such tremendous needs in this country for children to be able to go in and see a doctor, get their immunizations, get some advice on how to take care of themselves, they say we are not going to do that.

Their priorities are out of whack. Instead, I think it is a blatant political statement that we are going to continue these tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, and we are going to sock it to the most vulnerable, our seniors and our kids.

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Ms. CASTOR. We talked earlier about how the White House budget proposal we received this week is a fairy tale, but its impact on our veterans really is a nightmare. The State of Florida where I am from, we have the second highest number of veterans in the country, and in my district, I have the busiest VA center in the country, the James Haley Center, which saw over 1.5 million vets last year. That is more than the population of the State of Kansas we saw at the Haley Center in Tampa.

The Haley Center is specialized for current Iraq war vets injured, coming back, that are suffering the IED blasts, spinal cord injuries, brain injuries. And in Florida, out of all the VA medical centers, Haley, the busiest, we have gone now over the past 10 years from 2 million visits to over 5 million visits. And how can we say this is a reflection of values? How can we say we are going to step back from that responsibility? How can the White House send us a budget that steps back, at a time where they are escalating the war in Iraq, they are going to deescalate the commitment to our veterans? I don't think so.

In this Democratic Congress, we are going to take a new direction. There is new leadership in Washington, DC. And I am proud to be joined by some of the new Members, my colleagues, tonight, and also join with the efforts of leaders like my colleague from New Jersey. And I yield back.

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Ms. CASTOR. You all are absolutely right. It is very difficult to understand why the White House wants to sock it to our safety net hospitals. Have you all been to the emergency room lately, tried to get in? The long lines? People are ending up in our emergency rooms for their primary care because they have the flu. They are clogging the emergency rooms.

I was a county commissioner before I was elected to Congress, and the brave men and women in fire rescue said they would transport to the emergency room. It would be so busy and so full, they would have to stay with the emergency patient in the EMS truck for hours because the emergency room was clogged.

We have a crisis in this country, and it is inexplicable that the Bush administration would say by administrative rule and through this budget that has been sent to the Congress this week that we are going to cut money to those hospitals that provide the charity care in our country.

In my district, in the Tampa Bay area, the impact on Tampa General Hospital, which is a level one trauma center, $64 million. The great All Children's Hospital across the bay in Saint Petersburg, $31 million; the great St. Joseph's Hospital, another $20 million.

I would like to go back to SCHIP and also talk about the real-world, children's health insurance, because a few months ago, I ran into a friend of mine from high school, haven't seen her since I graduated 20-something years ago, and I saw her at a children's health insurance discussion.

She told me her story. Her name is Nan Dorton, and she lives in Tampa. She is married and has three kids. Her husband went through a tough time, and he lost his job, so they lost their health insurance. They didn't know what to do. It was very, very tough times. They didn't know about children's health insurance in Florida called KidCare or Healthy Kids, because the State has cut back under Governor Jeb Bush and the Republican legislature and they don't do any more outreach, so it is hard to find out about it.

Fortunately, he got a job. They were provided with health insurance through the employer. But you know how much it costs for that family to have the kids covered, $700 a month. She said it was hard to choose whether to put food on the table or take the kids to the doctor and sign them up for health insurance. She said, you live in constant fear of your child having to go to the hospital.

But then she found out about children's health insurance and KidCare, and signed them up. She said it revolutionized their lives because under these health services, they pay a $20-per-month copayment for all three kids, and they don't have any copays for hospital visits or prescriptions. You know how much money that is saving us because they are not showing up in the emergency room, which is passed on to all of us in our health insurance? That is going to save us because that family is healthier today, and we are going to save that money later on down the road.

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