On the Nomination of Michael Mukasey
Floor Speech
ON THE NOMINATION OF MICHAEL MUKASEY -- (Senate - October 31, 2007)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, back in August, I stood right here on the Senate floor and shared the story of a little girl from my home State. I did that because I wanted to illustrate why it is our moral obligation as Americans to renew and improve the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP.
Shortly afterward, the Senate approved the CHIP bill by an overwhelming margin because Senators on both sides of the aisle agreed that all children should be able to see a doctor when they are sick. They supported reauthorizing CHIP because it would reduce the number of uninsured American children by a third.
Well, President Bush vetoed it.
Now it is 3 months later, and I am frustrated and angry that I have to stand here again talking about CHIP and that we are still trying to get the White House to understand.
The supporters of this bill have agreed to a compromise. We want to make this program work. We are back with another bill now that we think meets everyone's needs. So today I come back to the floor to remind President Bush and anyone else who still questions how important it is to approve this program now--about that little girl from Yakima, WA, because it is time for the President to stop blocking her health care.
The little girl I want to tell you about is Sydney. She is 9 years old. In many ways, Sydney is like any other happy child in America. She loves to sing. She loves to dance. She does well in school. She has a lot of friends. But Sydney is different in one way. She has a life-shortening genetic condition called cystic fibrosis. It requires her to take and I quote from her a ``bucketful'' of medicine every day.
She has already spent weeks of her young life in the hospital hooked up to an IV of antibiotics which help her to live another day. All of that is possible because of the health care she has received as part of the CHIP program.
Her mom, Sandi DeBord, told me about Sydney because she was very frightened that CHIP might no longer be available for her daughter. She wrote to me and said:
I know for a fact that without this bit of assistance, her life would end much sooner due to the inability to afford quality health care for her.
Her life would end because she could not afford health care. What a sad note. I am here to tell the story again because, sad to say, 3 months later I cannot assure Sydney's mom that CHIP will always be there. In fact, the news has become even more worrisome.
Just today, in the New York Times, it reported that because of the President's refusal to work with Congress on this bill, several States are now planning to start dropping children from the program in order to save money. Unless something changes, California says it is going to start dropping 64,000 kids a month in January--64,000 kids a month.
A study from the Congressional Research Service found that nine States--Alaska, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island--are all going to run out of money by March. Twelve more States are going to run out between April and September. This is a tragedy, and it is our moral obligation to fix this. That is what we are trying to do now in the Senate.
As Sydney's story shows us, the need for the Children's Health Insurance Program is clear. It does not matter if you are a Republican child or a Democrat child or a progressive or a conservative; making sure our children get health care is the right thing to do.
When a child gets a cut that requires stitches or comes down with a fever or has an earache or any other imaginable problem, they ought to be able to get help, period. This is the United States of America. But, unfortunately, today, in this country, that is not the case. Millions of kids do not get the medicine or the care they need.
We know the ranks of our uninsured children are growing because as the cost of living rises and wages remain stagnant, more and more parents are struggling to afford any health care.
Most of us in the Senate know this. The CHIP program has had strong Republican support, and I particularly thank Senator Grassley and Senator Hatch, who cosponsored the original 1997 bill, and have been working so hard with Senator Baucus and Senator Rockefeller since.
But even with that bipartisan support in the Senate, President Bush has complained about the bill that passed. As an excuse to delay the program, he and a few Republican supporters say we have been unwilling to work with them. They say it will increase costs. I am here to say that is not the case. Despite what the President says, we listened to their concerns, and in this bill that is now before the Senate we address those concerns.
This bill we are now considering addresses the concerns we heard over and
over that children of illegal immigrants will be covered by requiring that States not only verify names and Social Security numbers, but they also check citizenship information in the Social Security Administration's database. So that issue is gone.
Secondly, it ends the coverage of childless adults by the end of 1 year. So that issue is gone.
Finally, this bill concentrates on making sure the poorest kids get covered first. So that issue is gone.
This bill also helps bridge the gap for another 3.9 million children whose parents cannot afford insurance. And this program is paid for. I want to say that again. This program is paid for.
President Bush just asked us to borrow $196 billion for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan for this year alone. But he opposes children's health insurance, even though we found a way to pay for every penny of it for the next 5 years. The $35 billion cost for CHIP's initiatives comes solely from a 61-cent excise tax increase on cigarettes and other tobacco products. No other programs are cut. Social Security is not raided. We are not increasing the deficit. Not only will this provide millions of children with health care, experts actually estimate it is going to get 1.7 million adults to quit smoking and prevent millions of kids from ever getting hooked. So this is good for our kids' health care now, and it is going to make a lot of kids healthier in the future.
Children's health should not be about politics. I have said this over and over. It is about making sure kids see a doctor when they need to. Kids are not Democrats; they are not Republicans. They are just kids who deserve health care.
Unfortunately, President Bush has let health care for our children get caught up in a desperate attempt to appeal to his dwindling number of supporters.
We know CHIP is the right thing to do. Americans know it is the right thing to do. More than 65 percent of them oppose President Bush's veto.
So to President Bush--and to any of our colleagues out there who still see this as a debate over politics and numbers--I want to remind you once more of a little girl who is 9 years old whose name is Sydney and the millions of other kids out there who depend on us to do the right thing.
Sydney is still fighting cystic fibrosis, and her mom is still wondering whether she will be able to take care of her in the future.
I hope we can tell her that we will.
So on behalf of Sydney, on behalf of the 73,000 uninsured children in my State alone, and the more than 8 million children in this country, I thank all of my colleagues who worked so hard on this bill and supported it to this point. I urge the President to stop blocking this critical program for our kids.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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