Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007
CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - September 25, 2007)
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Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank the distinguished chairman for recalling to mind that opening day here when I accepted the gavel on behalf of the children of America, all of the children of America. And when we had this debate before in Congress, we talked about perhaps the children listening to this debate, hearing what Members of Congress were saying. And I expressed my hope that they would consider this the children's Congress.
I thank the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel, for his leadership, and Mr. Stark, the Chair of the Health Subcommittee for helping to make this the children's Congress with this legislation. I thank the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee for his tremendous leadership.
Mr. Rangel and Mr. Dingell went into the conversations with the Republican leadership in the Senate on this bill, true champions of America's children, knowing the facts and figures, the provisions, every provision of the bill with such authority as they argued on behalf of America's children so effectively that this legislation before us reflects many of the provisions that were in the House bill. We had to agree to the Senate language in terms of the $35 billion and the pay-for with the tax on tobacco. We had hoped that we could do more in terms of the money allocated for this purpose so that we could cover more children.
As I praise Mr. Dingell, I also want to acknowledge the fabulous leadership of Mr. Pallone, Chairman PALLONE of the Subcommittee on Health in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Because of their leadership, we were able to join Senator Reid, Chairman Baucus, Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking Member GRASSLEY, and Ranking Member HATCH in having a very bipartisan conversation on this subject. The people who were in the room that evening cared about passing a serious piece of legislation to expand health care for America's children. Not to expand the eligibility, as some on the other side of this House would have you believe, but to expand the number of kids who could be served if they met the eligibility. I, myself, had hoped that we could go beyond that and have eligible children in America who were legal immigrants. I was told that that would not fly in the Senate; that is a fight we will hold for another day.
But I am pleased as one who represents a minority majority district from a majority minority State, where our State is blessed with a beautiful diversity, that of the additional children, nearly 4 million additional children covered, 67 percent of those children are minority children. Two-thirds of those children are children from families who are working hard, playing by the rules, lifting themselves out of poverty. They are the working poor in America. They are those who have aspired to the middle class to change that status and want to stay there. They simply don't make enough money to afford the private health insurance that this SCHIP initiative enables them to do. In fact, 72 percent, my colleagues might be interested to know that 72 percent of the children on this SCHIP program get their health coverage from private health insurance.
There are many misrepresentations, and I think they are probably unwitting because I assume that every person in this Congress cares about insuring as many children in our country as possible. How could it not be so? It is a deeply held value in our country that our children, as President Kennedy said, are our greatest resource and our best hope for the future. We must invest in them. We have a moral responsibility to do so.
When we had the debate on this bill and it first came to the floor, I was delighted in quoting a poem from my youth from Longfellow when he said, ``Between the dark and the daylight, when the night is beginning to lower, comes a pause in the day's occupation that is known as the children's hour.'' This is the children's hour for us in the Congress of the United States.
I quoted Longfellow then, I am reminded of the Bible tonight, and I speak with all of the sincerity and all of the hope to President Bush in the hope that he will change his mind to dig deeply into his heart and think about the children in America who don't have health care. Because, if not, I think that the President is giving new meaning to the words ``suffer, little children.'' Suffer, little children, if your parents can't afford health insurance, but they are working hard and they are not on Medicaid, but you will suffer because they are struggling to give you the best possible future. Suffer, little children, if your family has played by the rules and they have come to this country and you are here as a legal immigrant, because if you are sick, you will not get health care unless your parents can afford private insurance. Suffer, little children, if you are sick because you haven't had the proper nutrition, the proper prevention, the proper early intervention to your affliction, that you should go directly to the emergency room. But until you can get into that emergency room with enough of a serious illness, you will suffer. That
is just not right.
I would hope that the President would have had a change of heart and mind since he was Governor of Texas. When he was Governor of Texas, the SCHIP program there, in meeting the needs of the children of Texas, ranked 49th in the country; 49th in the country. Forty-eight States were doing better in meeting the health needs of their children as reflected in the outreach of the SCHIP program. Does that mean that Texas is the 49th wealthiest State in the Union, that the children in that State can all afford private health care? I don't think so, especially since that State, as with mine, is blessed with beautiful diversity and people, again, families who come to America, families who are part of our country, who are struggling to make ends meet to build a better future for their children. And building that better future is what our country is all about, and those newcomers make America more American. I heard the President say that.
We also heard him say that in this term of office that he would enroll every child who is eligible. I am sure our distinguished majority leader will bring that to the attention of this body.
What is interesting about this is that the President, if he persists in vetoing this bill, and by the way, you don't have to be a Latin scholar to know that ``veto'' means ``I forbid.'' With that pen, the President says, I forbid struggling families in America to have health care for their children. I forbid every child to be treated the same if they have an ailment.
How did any one of us decide that we were going to choose, you will have health care and you will not, in a country as great as ours when we are talking about our children? We are talking about our children.
So that is why the Conference of Mayors, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a bipartisan organization, has overwhelmingly supported this legislation. That is why 43 Governors sent us a letter in July urging us to come to bipartisan agreement on legislation that would reauthorize SCHIP to care for many more children in our country. So when I hear the President say that we don't want to help children, we just want to do politics, I don't think he means that. So I hope he doesn't mean that he is going to veto the bill.
Senator Grassley said of the President: The President's understanding of our bill is wrong. I urge him to reconsider his veto message based on our bill, not something that someone on his staff told him wrongly is in the bill. Actually, he said, ``in my bill,'' Senator Grassley said. And Senator Hatch said: We are talking about kids who basically don't have coverage. I think the President has some pretty bad advice on this.
And I want to also commend Representative Ray LaHood and join you, Mr. Chairman, in saying what a privilege it is to call him ``colleague'' and to serve with him in the Congress, and thank him for his leadership in making a distinction between what is about the children and what is about politics in this House.
I talked about the mayors; I talked about the Governors. Nearly 300 organizations in our country, alphabetically from AARP to YMCA and everything alphabetically in between, Families USA.
I heard someone say the doctors should be making the decisions. The American Medical Association firmly supports this bill. The President of the AMA stood with us in a press conference today to support this legislation. The Society of Pediatrics. Everyone who has anything to do or cares about children in our country knows that this bill is the way to go. It is not everything I want, believe me, it is not the bill I would have written. I would have been far more generous and it would have been paid for in perhaps a different way, but it would have been paid for; because in terms of bringing benefits to our children, we have absolutely no intention of heaping debt onto them.
The Catholic Hospitals Association, again, the list goes on and on about who supports this bill. It is a long list; it is a comprehensive list. And I might include in it that, across the country, overwhelmingly, the American people know and respect the value of taking care of America's children, all of America's children. Two-thirds, two-thirds of those polled among Republican voters, 2-1, they support passing this legislation and having it signed into law.
Why does the President want to isolate himself from caring for America's children? Let's hope and let's pray that a very big, strong bipartisan vote tonight will send him a message to rethink his position.
I see a child in the Chamber. Our constant inspiration of what we do here is supposed to be about the future, and the future demands that we invest in health, the education, and the well-being of our children.
So, my colleagues, vote as if the children are watching. Please vote as if the children are watching, and please send them a message that this is the children's Congress.
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