Children's Health Insurance Program

Floor Speech

CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM -- (Senate - October 17, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I came to the Chamber to speak on an oversight issue on which I have been working for well over a year. But before I speak on that subject, I wish to take advantage of the opportunity to respond to incorrect impressions about the compromise State Children's Health Insurance Program bill on which the House is going to be voting tomorrow. I am speaking as much to Republicans in the House of Representatives as I am responding to some of the points Senator Lott has made. These reminded me that regardless of how many speeches one gives around here, regardless of how many explanations one gives of what our bill does and does not do, nobody listens. We get the same wrong statements being made time after time. I wonder, does anybody ever listen? Maybe they don't like to have Chuck Grassley say it.

I was a negotiator for the Republicans. I never had a single Republican tell me since January that they didn't want the SCHIP program reauthorized after a 10-year sunset. I never had one of them say it wasn't a program that was serving a good purpose. I had a lot of people express faults about what is wrong with the present program. Most of those issues have been corrected in the legislation the President vetoed.

I finally got people to realize the $5 billion the President put in his budget on top of baseline is not enough to do what we are already doing. Even the Republicans on this side offered $14.5 billion over baseline, which still is not enough to do what needs to be done to take care of the kids we are taking care of now and extend coverage to other eligible but uninsured low income children.

Some people are saying this bill should have been vetoed because there are adults in the program. But it was this Administration that approved the waivers

to cover adults. The bill that the President vetoed did away with waivers. What has been in the program for 10 years this bill does away with. Childless adults are not going to be on the program. New waivers for parents under SCHIP is prohibited. For states that currently cover parents, the federal match is reduced. But yet people are still saying to me, from the other body, as I talk with Republicans over there to vote to override the President's veto: Why are we letting all these adults on? The waivers did that, and we do away with the waivers.

Also, in my conversations with people in the other body, as I try to convince them they ought to vote to override the veto, this $83,000 number keeps coming up. There was an inference made to it in the previous speech. That is not in our bill, and yet the President in his veto message referred to our bill allowing people up to $83,000 to get on SCHIP. That is in the law. It has been in the law for 10 years, and that can only happen if the President of the United States says a State can do that upon that State's request. Only the President can allow that to happen. That has been that way for 10 years. So don't tell me our bill allows States to go up to $83,000. That has been the law.

What about the statement of having genuine poor children on this program? I agree. Do you know that 92 percent of the kids on the program are in families under 200 percent of poverty? Somebody can say: What about the other 8 percent? OK, so what do we do about that? Because there has been an inference to a State Health Official letter to states released on August 17, 2007 that we did away with what would have prevented that. But the policies in that letter were flawed and unworkable. What we did is we made those policies workable in our legislation. So the emphasis on kids under 200 percent of poverty works out this way: First, we reduce the Federal match to the Medicaid match for any state that wants to go over 300 percent of poverty, beginning upon enactment of the bill. Then, by 2010, any State that wants to go or to continue to go above 300 percent of poverty for children has to demonstrate that they have reached the targets determined by the 10 best States covering kids under 200 percent of poverty. If they do not meet the target, they get no Federal match for kids over 300 percent.

So don't tell me the bill before us does not have emphasis on low-income kids. It has emphasis on low-income kids.

It was not brought up in the previous speech, but in my conversations with the House of Representatives, I have had this other smokescreen thrown at me: Our bill allows illegal immigrants to get on the program. For the first time, we are doing in SCHIP what has never been done before, what we have done for Medicaid in the Deficit Reduction Act. We are making it so that illegal immigrants cannot get on the SCHIP program.

People are paid to read legislation, and I don't know how the President of the United States, who gets paid a heck of a lot more than I do and has a lot of advisers who get paid a heck of a lot more than I do--I don't know how they can have him put in a speech that this bill allows people over $83,000 to get into the program, or there can be speeches in the Chamber of the other body saying we are opening the door for illegal immigrants to be covered by this program when we are doing more than existing law does in that area and where existing law already allows, if the President approves it.

And then this business of adults being in the program--absolutely right, three States have more adults on the program than other States. How did that happen? This administration gave waivers for that to happen. We do away with those waivers. I have heard all the complaints from this side of the Senate, the Republican side of the Senate, that there is no ``A'' in SCHIP--and I agree, it shouldn't be for adults--and I even heard Democrats strongly speak to this point. This program should never have gone in that direction. We do away with waivers.

I ask everybody to read the legislation, and particularly Republicans in the other body, before they vote tomorrow to override or not override because all these inaccurate representations of the compromise bill are creating a very bad mistake. It's so bad politically that the White House is looking for some way to get out of this situation. Probably that some way to get out of it is negotiating another bill with us. But it would be smart if the White House would send a signal to the House of Representatives: Override our veto; we made a mistake.

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