Voting for Reauthorizing SCHIP Legislation

Statement

Voting for Reauthorizing SCHIP Legislation

The SCHIP (pronounced S-Chip) program was originally created as a bipartisan collaboration between congressional Republicans and President Bill Clinton in 1997. Since then the SCHIP program has enjoyed broad support from both parties. This year, Congress was required to reauthorize funding for the SCHIP program.

There is no question that providing healthcare for low-income children is not only necessary, but it's also the right thing to do. During the current fiscal year Ohio received $158 million in federal SCHIP funds for our state's kids. Without this funding many families in Ohio's Third District would not be able to provide healthcare for their children.

Originally, House Democrats proposed cutting $193 billion in Medicare - cuts aimed at seniors - in order to pay for reauthorizing an expanding SCHIP program. I could not support cutting Medicare services that have been previously promised to our seniors. Specifically, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the original proposal would have meant cutting Medicare spending for the 19,329 seniors in Ohio's Third District who are enrolled in a Medicare Advantage Program. These services are crucial to our seniors and this cut in funding would be a threat to their health and wellbeing. Therefore, I voted against the proposal (HR 3162) because there were better solutions for paying for low-income children's health insurance.

During this past week an improved SCHIP proposal (H.R. 976) was debated on the House floor. This bill was very different from the legislation that House Democrats had previously proposed and I voted against. Most importantly, the cuts in Medicare Advantage plans for senior citizens were eliminated. This ensured that grandchildren would not be provided with healthcare at the expense of their grandparents.

Additionally, under the new legislation, states have a financial incentive to document who is receiving SCHIP benefits. States that do keep careful records of who are receiving SCHIP benefits can incur a financial penalty. Further, this legislation will make it easier to enroll in SCHIP by removing some of the complicated bureaucratic barriers that have stood between doctors and patients for too long.

Like the SCHIP program, this legislation has achieved bipartisan support in Congress and among our Nation's governors (43 of which endorsed the bill). SCHIP has also been popular among state and local governments and provides a tremendous service to many of our nation's most vulnerable youth. The SCHIP program provides a great deal of flexibility for each state to administer the program as they believe best.

Because SCHIP contracts out the majority of its services to private insurance companies, this bill represents the kind of public-private partnership that I believe is most successful. This SCHIP program would cover between three to four million children who currently lack health insurance without making reductions to Medicare coverage for our seniors.

It is very important that we continue to look out for the future health and welfare of this nation, and that starts with taking care of our children today. As a father of two, I understand the concerns all parents have about the health care of their children. Ensuring the availability of health care is the right thing to do and this week, on a bipartisan basis, the House of Representatives demonstrated that it was also a Congressional priority.

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