Children's Health Insurance

Floor Speech

CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, earlier today, the President announced his intention to veto the extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program bill. I believe such a veto would be a terrible mistake.

One of the very first bills I cosponsored when I first came to the Senate was legislation to create the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP as it has become known. It provides health care coverage for children in families where the parents do not have sufficient income to purchase health insurance and are not getting health insurance in the workplace, and yet they make a bit too much money to qualify for coverage under the State's Medicaid program. So these low-income children in working families have been falling through the cracks. That is why this law has been so important.

I remember it well that Senator Hatch, Senator Kennedy, and Senator Rockefeller all came up to me to enlist my support. I was very eager to sign on as one of the original cosponsors of this law because I knew it could make such a positive difference. Indeed, it has.

Since 1997, the SCHIP program has contributed to a one-third decline in the rate of uninsured low-income children. Today, an estimated 6.6 million children, including more than 14,500 children living in Maine, receive health care coverage through this program. Still, there is more we could do.

While Maine ranks among the top four States in reducing the number of uninsured children, we still have more than 20,000 children in our State who lack coverage. Nationally, about 9 million children remain uninsured. That is why I was so pleased to hear the conferees appeared to be very near to an agreement that is modeled on the legislation that passed the Senate in August with strong bipartisan support, in fact, by a vote of 68 to 31.

Our Senate bill increases funding for the SCHIP program by $35 million over the next 5 years, a level that is sufficient to maintain coverage for all 6.6 million children currently enrolled, and it would also allow the program to expand to cover an additional 3.3 million low-income children. In Maine, this legislation would allow us to cover an additional 11,000 low-income children who are currently eligible for the SCHIP program but not enrolled.

I urge the administration to take a second look at the Senate bill, the bill that is the basis for the conference agreement. This legislation has made a real difference in the lives of working families with low-income children across this country. It is helping to ensure these children grow up to be healthy adults. Surely, we can get this done on a bipartisan basis before the program is scheduled to expire on September 30.

I urge the President of the United States to reconsider his threat to veto this vital program, this highly successful program that has a proven track record of reducing the number of children who lack health insurance. If the President does proceed to veto the bill, I will vote to override his veto. Surely, this bill has a track record that has made a real difference to low-income children in working families. We simply cannot allow this program to expire. The extension and expansion we are proposing will enable us to more fully cover these children.

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