Press Conference with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Rep. David Price (D-NC); Jennifer Howse, President, March of Dimes; Subject: SCHIP
Statement
Press Conference with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Rep. David Price (D-NC); Jennifer Howse, President, March of Dimes; Subject: SCHIP
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SPEAKER PELOSI: And we're very honored that he's on Capitol Hill today leading a large March of Dimes contingent to advocate for SCHIP. He's here with his mom, Betty, thank you, Betty for being here and we're honored to have with us the president of the March Dimes, Dr. Howse, who is with us and thank you Dr. Howse for -- (inaudible) -- for children and for SCHIP in particular at this time.
Zeek and his mother, Betty, are magnificently represented in the Congress by Congressman David Price. David, I'd like to yield to in case you'd like to offer a welcome (inaudible).
REP. PRICE: I want to welcome these wonderful constituents to Washington. Zeek is a nationwide ambassador for the March of Dimes and he has a personal history that makes us understand how important this battle today, this veto override attempt. He's a third-grader -- landmark event that's occurring today with the stake of millions of our nation's children in the balances.
SPEAKER PELOSI: Betty, do you want to tell us about Zeek and how he came to be in this situation?
BETTY TAYLOR (Mother of Zeek Taylor): Yes. Zeek was born three and a half months too soon, 26 weeks gestation, weighing a pound, 14 ounces. He spent the first three and a half months of his life in a neo-natal intensive care unit at Duke University Medical Center in Durham and he had a lot of battles to face such as having retinopathy of prematurity. He was born with very undeveloped lungs and thanks to the March of Dimes and the dollars that they spend in medical research, Zeek was given -- (inaudible) -- therapy, which was developed from the March of Dimes medical research dollars and without that, we might not have Zeek here today and Zeek also experienced some difficulties with digestion, heart problems, but thanks to the many technological advances, many that are as the result of the March of Dimes support, Zeek is an eight-year-old doing very, very well now, but the road wasn't easy and on our family it wasn't easy. It was much to endure and that's why I'm here today on behalf of the March of Dimes and on behalf of those here to support the SCHIP field because so many families like ours without the medical support and the financial support to be able to help babies like Zeek, our story might be different.
And so I thank the March of Dimes. I thank the Speaker for having us here today and my congressman being here today to support whatever we can do to make the SCHIP bill happen.
SPEAKER PELOSI: Thank you, Betty, and it's clear that Zeek was also blessed with a wonderful, loving family and supportive family and today we understand he likes to cook and make greeting cards and likes music and he's an ambassador, an ambassador.
Dr. Howse, could you tell us about how many children in our country are born prematurely and the important work that March of Dimes does in that regard and why SCHIP is so important to them?
MS. HOWSE: Yes, of course. Well, Zeek and Betty are here representing three million volunteers across the country who care very deeply about the health of all our babies and the SCHIP bill is so very important because it provides health insurance for six million children right now and with the bill that we hope will pass today, it will provide coverage for four million more children, so there's that provision.
There's also a very important provision in this new reauthorization bill that covers pregnant women who are income- eligible and as you can see from the story with Zeek and his mom, Betty, it's very important, particularly in the situation of a premature birth that the treatment can begin while the baby is just beginning to be developing, and perhaps even in distress and that treatment can begin immediately after birth and go right into the neo- natal intensive care unit.
And so we are very hopeful that the veto will be overridden today and that we will be able to cheer very loudly, all 400 of our March of Dimes volunteers who are here in the Capitol today on behalf of the SCHIP bill and we thank Speaker Pelosi for all of her wonderful leadership on behalf of children.
SPEAKER PELOSI: It's important to note that one in eight babies born in America is born prematurely, that's half a million babies at least a year. So SCHIP is very important to these children for their healthcare, but also because many of them will have conditions that will present them from getting health insurance and that's why SCHIP is so important as well.
Zeek is not on SCHIP; March of Dimes came to his rescue, but he's very generously leading the 400 volunteers who know the value of the healthcare that SCHIP will provide.
So we thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Did you have something you wanted to say?
ZEEK TAYLOR (March of Dimes ambassador): Thank you for saving babies.
BETTY TAYLOR: Thank you for helping to save babies, right?
ZEEK TAYLOR: Yes.
Q If this is so important, why don't you work out with the president, you don't bring up the Armenian resolution, he pushes for the vote on SCHIP?
SPEAKER PELOSI: Do you think the president is willing to make that kind of arrangement -- first of all, each issue is judged on its own. This is a banner issue for the Congress of the United States, SCHIP, bipartisan consensus on doing what's right for our children. This isn't about a trade. This is about as fair on its own as a very, very important value. And so I don't know if you're speaking for the president (inaudible), but I don't have any reason to think that the president will be supportive of our efforts on children. I think he's made that very clear.
Q (Off mike.) Madame Speaker -- on your side?
SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, I'll tell you one thing, this had an impact on the view of the American people; the CBS poll now has it at 82 percent of the American people support SCHIP and support our position on it. So what it is that these people are not in tune with their own constituents, but we'll see what the votes are today. I'm pretty philosophical about the fact that we're going down the right path. There isn't a country in the world that you respect that doesn't provide healthcare for its children.
We want our members today to vote as if the lives of America's children depended on their vote because they certainly do, and we will take the action we do today and review what happens here and go to the next step, but the American people understand the issue. Congress, mainly the Republicans may not, but I haven't given up on them. I think that at the end of the day, ten million children will go into this next year with health insurance.
Q (Off mike.) You don't --
SPEAKER PELOSI: I didn't say that. I think we'll find out when we take the vote and in a few minutes very excitingly we will be swearing in a new member, Niki Tsongas from Massachusetts and Niki Tsongas' first act of Congress, God blessed her with this opportunity will be to vote for healthcare for ten million children in America.
Q (Off mike.) The president said yesterday that there is no communication between Democrats and the president and the White House on the issue of SCHIP; they were shut out he said. The Democrats on the Appropriations Committee -- (inaudible) -- that they're being shut out of all these negotiations and the veto threats over the appropriations bill and on the larger question of the communication between you and the president, Democrats and the president, have you gotten used to each other?
Why was there miscommunication?
SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, first of all, as I've said before and I hate to say this in front of Zeek, just because the president says it doesn't make it so. The president knows that we've had many conversations on SCHIP leading up to the vote. We urged him to work together on this. He didn't want to move forward with insuring more children, so we work in a bipartisan way in the Congress of the United States to send a bill to the president's desk.
We talked about after he received the bill about his -- urging him to sign the bill, which he did not. I talked to him as recently as yesterday about how we could work together to go forward.
So that simply isn't a fact. The fact is that the president on the issue of insuring ten million children does not share our value. He's satisfied at five million, maybe he would like to decide which of the children will be insured and which will not and maybe he'd like to be the one to tell them that.
So this is about what's happening today. This is about what's happening for America's children. The conversation about communication is one that goes on all the time about is it enough or not. Certainly, we would like to have more cooperation from the president, but the conversation was just one in which he tries to persuade us to his point of view while we're taking the point of view of ten million children in America in a bipartisan way, in a bipartisan way in the Congress.
Q (Off mike.) -- compromise or --
SPEAKER PELOSI: I'm supposed to be talking to Michael. Every chance that I get I try to make an overture to the president for America's children. It's the most important issue; it's not an even issue. Healthcare for America's children is a value. It is an ethic. It is what should be fundamental to a country and we would hope to persuade the president to a point that we can agree on. If that is impossible, we just have to get the votes to override the president's veto.
I'd like to yield to my distinguished colleague, Mr. Price, who has been a leader on these issues. This isn't the only day he has his children's tie on. He's here for America's children every day.
David, is there anything you'd like to say?
REP. PRICE: The part about the appropriations bills and the degree of consultation that's going on is -- I'm glad you raised the point because we have now veto threats on ten of our twelve appropriations bills, actually 11 and that doesn't sound to me like the actions of a president who understands what happened last fall, who understands the way the American people have spoken and who understands the need to accommodate to one another's point of view and pass these appropriations bills for the good of this country.
So we are in a struggle and we are going to push through to the end of the road here, proudly into the road as they say, but it is a demanding situation and one that, I think, is going to require some accommodation of all of us.
This battle here today, this battle here today in many ways is the signature, the signature -- there's nothing more fundamental as the Speaker has said to our values, to what we stand for as Americans than this provision of basic healthcare for America's children. It hasn't even been partisan or controversial before.
Remember the way SCHIP was adopted in 1997, a thoroughly bipartisan initiative as part of a budget agreement. It's only in this latter period that this has become controversial. I believe actually the president is realizing that he's made a mistake here because while two or three weeks ago, he was reaching back to the 1960s and talking about socialized medicine. Have you heard that lately? No. All that we're hearing now is, oh, we can work this out. Well, we can work it out. We've already worked it out. This is already a compromise bill in many ways.
So we need to pass this today. We need to override this veto and then we need to go on to work together for the good of this country as we fund the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education programs and other things that are so critical to our well being.
Q (Off mike.)
REP. PRICE: Who says we're not winning?
SPEAKER PELOSI: The children will win the day. It may be today or it may be a day soon, but the children will win the day.
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