SCHIP
Floor Speech
SCHIP -- (Senate - October 31, 2007)
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I realize today is Halloween, so millions of children all over the globe will be showing up at our homes, saying ``trick or treat.'' Unfortunately, Congress has been up to more tricks than treats lately. I say that with a sense of irony but also a sense of great disappointment.
Almost 3 weeks ago, on October 11, I sent a letter to Senator Reid, the Senate majority leader, and the Speaker of the House, Congresswoman Pelosi, urging them to work across the aisle with Republicans and Democrats to come up with a sensible compromise on the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Today, as we know, is October 31, Halloween, and we have still not been able to come up with a compromise that is reasonable and fiscally responsible which the President will sign. The families and the children in my State of Texas who are, unfortunately, put on edge and suffering some sense of anxiety wondering whether this important program will continue to serve the needs of low-income children are being unfortunately taken advantage of and disadvantaged.
Why in the world would Congress play this kind of game and make those who are the most vulnerable among us the most anxious about their future and whether they will be able to get the health care which everyone in Congress believes low-income children ought to receive?
Instead of negotiating and trying to come up with a sensible compromise,
we find the leadership in the House of Representatives rushing through a bill with little bipartisan input. Rather than trying to hammer out a meaningful compromise, we find a bill that actually costs just as much but serves fewer children and which otherwise makes minor tweaks to the legislation.
This bill clearly misses the mark and fails to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program according to the original intent of the program, which is putting low-income children first, low-income children whose families earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid--that is up to 100 percent of the poverty level--but who make up to 200 percent of the poverty level. Unfortunately, due to the inaction of the U.S. Congress, we have 700,000 low-income Texas children who qualify for Medicaid, who qualify for SCHIP, but who are currently not signed up and receiving those benefits. Instead, Congress is taking its eye off the ball and exploding this sensible program that deserves to be authorized by raising the eligibility cap to 300 percent of the poverty level but doing nothing--I reiterate--nothing to ensure that low-income children, including 700,000 low-income children in Texas, have coverage first before we grow the program to higher income levels and cover adults as well.
In fact, this legislation repeals the requirement that 95 percent of low-income children below 200 percent of the poverty level be covered first before extending coverage to children from higher income families. I do not believe this provision has the interests of the children this legislation was designed to serve put first. Instead, I think it puts partisan political interests ahead of the interests of low-income children.
All of this has come, of course, in response to the President's veto of the original SCHIP reauthorization, a proposal that failed to encourage participation among the poorest of our children, and instead expanded coverage to children of higher income families as well as adults. Rather than being an obstacle, the President's veto should be looked at as an opportunity to reengage on a bipartisan basis to come up with a solution. It is no wonder that Congress's approval ratings are around the 11-percent range. When the people across America look to Washington to find solutions to their problems, what do they find? They find partisan posturing and precious few results.
This is an opportunity to deliver a result and to keep a promise that we, on a bipartisan basis, have made to the poorest children in our country. What should we have asked ourselves as to what we should do? While we leave our children and their families blowing in the wind, will we turn their lives into campaign promises or will we, instead, keep our word that we came here to serve the needs of the American people, and particularly the most vulnerable among us, by continuing this important program and making sure that poor kids get health care first, before we look at growing this program to cover other more well-to-do children or perhaps even adults as are covered currently in four States.
The recent debate on SCHIP has focused too much on our political gains and not enough on the well-being of our poor children. This bill has become another political football in a game that has been raging for months, but, unlike any other game that I am familiar with, this game has only an imaginary scoreboard, the results are arbitrary, and nothing--nothing--it appears, is out of bounds.
Whenever a health care package for low-income children is delayed because some want to engage in partisan games and political posturing, you know things have gone too far.
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and yet expecting different results. Well, by that definition, this is insanity. We know the original bill that was vetoed by the President was because it strayed far from the original objectives. It was not funded on a source of revenue that could be expected to pay for this radical expansion of the current program by 140 percent.
Well, we know the reasons the President vetoed that legislation. And what does the leadership in the House of Representatives decide to do? Well, they decide to essentially do the same thing again and dare the President, one more time, to veto this legislation.
It is clear this is not, by definition, good-faith negotiation and attempt, on a bipartisan basis, to solve this very real problem. Rather than give voice to those who want to find a better and more sensible solution to this problem, we will find ourselves this afternoon simply voting on another substantially flawed bill, which the President has likewise promised to veto.
Of course, when the bill returns from its short and uneventful trip to the White House, we will not fail to see the video cameras paraded out for the press conferences to talk once more about how the President and those who voted against this bill have heartlessly blocked it.
It has become a cynical ploy. Everybody gets it. Only people inside the beltway in Washington or inside this Chamber who continue to engage in partisan posturing do not get it. The American people see through it as clearly as you would expect.
The truth is no one wants to see SCHIP reauthorized more than the Members of the Congress, on a bipartisan basis. It is an enormously successful program passed with broad bipartisan support in 1997, and it should be continued. As a matter of fact, those of us who voted against the bill the President vetoed believe we should continue the program, and we should add at least $10 billion to the original funding in order to cover more and more low-income kids.
But even more important than that, in my State of Texas, half of the uninsured children in Texas who are eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP under the current program are not signed up. What is Congress doing to make sure those children are reached out to, that their parents are assisted in filling out the paperwork so they can qualify for this program? Precious little. Precious little.
Congress continues to add 140 percent to the current authority under this program, to take money out of necessary outreach to reach out to the low-income kids and to explode this program into one that covers people making much more money than double the Federal level of poverty.
I will do everything in my power to ensure these children get the health care they need. The problem is, as I and many of my colleagues have pointed out numerous times, this bill does not make these children a priority. It does not make these children a priority but, rather, an afterthought.
Instead, it puts other children, many of whom already enjoy the benefits of private health insurance, in competition with these low-income children for CHIP coverage. The result is that children who most need it get crowded out in favor of children who already have private health insurance.
This bill simply does not fix the problem. It raises the eligibility for CHIP enrollment without a concerted effort to enroll those children who are currently eligible first. Additionally, this new bill does nothing to close the loopholes on income disregard. Now, that is a fancy way of saying disregarding the rules. You say the rules are one thing, but you come behind it later on and say: Well, forget some of these rules when it comes to qualifying income.
This bill is another example of that kind of gamesmanship under the title of income disregards which allows States the ability to, in effect, define a family's income by saying: We will not take into account all income. We are going to disregard some so you will qualify for this Federal Government taxpayer-paid-for benefit.
This loophole would allow States to actually exceed 300 percent of poverty level by disregarding part of the family's income.
Neither does this bill address the crowd-out effect which is expected to shift 2 million children from private coverage to government-run health care. There are a number of other problems with this bill that do nothing to eliminate the document fraud and identity theft that would allow noncitizens to qualify for the benefits under this legislation.
We can do better. We must do better. But we cannot do better as long as we continue to engage in this partisan gamesmanship and political posturing. Unfortunately, it is the low-income children, among the most vulnerable in our country, who are the ones who are left wondering: Is Congress going to act in their best interests?
Unfortunately, they have seen very little evidence so far that they are our
No. 1 priority, as they should be. Instead, partisan politics appear to be the No. 1 priority, and those children appear to be something left behind.
I yield the floor.
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