Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007--Veto Message from the President of the United States

CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2007--VETO MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (H. DOC. NO. 110-80) -- (House of Representatives - December 12, 2007)

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, let me say it really pains me to listen to the minority leader say that no attempt has been made to resolve the differences on this legislation. I can't think of a single bill in this Congress where the Democratic leadership has been reaching out to the Republican side of the aisle on a daily basis. There have been so many meetings. I mean, there have literally been hundreds of meetings trying to reach out to the Republican side in the House to try to reconcile differences on this bill and come up with a consensus piece of legislation. The Republicans in the Senate have always been willing. They have been out there to meet. Some Republicans here in the House have been as well. But the leadership on the Republican side has not been. So I think it is very unfortunate that, as stated today, that that has not been the case. We have been reaching out constantly, and I defy anyone to say differently.

Madam Speaker, today for the second time this year President Bush turned his back on the health care needs of 10 million children. It was just 2 months ago when the President vetoed the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, which had passed both the House and the Senate with overwhelmingly bipartisan support.

After that first veto we came together once again, Democrats and Republicans, and wrote a different bill that addresses many of the President's concerns, including enrolling lower income children first. Today, President Bush vetoed the second effort, saying that it was almost identical to the first bill. And I would say it was not, and the President knows better.

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The President's second veto of CHIP legislation is a slap in the face not only to this Congress but to the millions of children who, without this bill, continue to be uninsured, or worse, basically lose the insurance they currently have.

Every day the parents of more than 9 million children worry when their kids have an earache, toothache, asthma, all this before they finally have to take them to the hospital emergency room. And the President seems satisfied with the status quo. In fact, in the past he has stated that every American has access to health care because they can always go to the emergency room.

Let me tell my colleagues, this fall I visited an emergency room in my district and it was not a great place for a kid to visit. It is the scene of trauma. Children are forced to share space with people who have overdosed on alcohol or drugs. Most emergency rooms are overwhelmed with real emergencies and have few resources to treat people who need regular family care.

The beauty of CHIP is that children get to see a doctor on a regular basis. And the President is deluding himself if he doesn't think this veto is going to hurt millions of children. And those Members voting to sustain the President's veto are just as guilty of turning their backs on millions of children who will be denied regular visits to see a doctor.

I urge my Republican colleagues to vote their conscience. Let's override the President's veto so that we can ensure that 10 million children receive the health care they need to grow up healthy and strong. This is the right thing to do for our country.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I just want to reiterate and contradict some of the things that the President said in his veto message today.

He said that this is the same bill that we sent him that he previously vetoed. And it's simply not true. We made substantial changes to it to allay concerns about higher income families enrolling, adults being enrolled, or even undocumented immigrants being enrolled. I just want to point out some of the flaws with the President's message in closing.

First, the President says that our goal should be to move kids into private coverage and not into public programs. That is exactly what the CHIP program does, Mr. President. CHIP provides money to States, which in turn contract with private insurance companies to provide insurance coverage to kids. It's not socialized medicine, it's not government-run health care, and the President should know that.

Second, the President says his proposal to reauthorize CHIP would increase funding by 20 percent. What he doesn't tell you is that his plan would not help provide coverage to the 6 million kids who are uninsured and eligible to enroll in either CHIP or Medicaid. I would point out that the Senate Finance Committee in July received a letter from the CBO where they said that they estimate between 5 million and 6 million children who are uninsured are eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP. So there are a lot of kids out there, almost twice as many that are in the program now, that could be insured.

And then the President said that we allow adult coverage. Well, let me say our bill phases out adult coverage faster than the President would do by just disapproving his waiver renewals.

Fourth, the President says we don't focus on the lowest income kids, and that's not true. We provide financial resources for States to go out and find the lowest income kids first.

Finally, the President has said he's been willing to work with us to reauthorize SCHIP, and the Republicans in the House said the same thing. Well, the fact of the matter is that, as our majority leader said, we have reached out. We have had hundreds of hours of meetings. We have reached out to the

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President. It's simply not true that we haven't reach out, and the fact of the matter is that the President has been unwilling to budge even 1 inch from where he wants to go with the SCHIP legislation. Instead of working with us to provide health insurance to 10 million kids, he's given us two vetoes now.

All I can say, Mr. President, the holiday season is upon us, but you are basically becoming the Grinch who stole Christmas from these 10 million kids, in this case at least 5 or 6 million, that don't have health insurance. It's a shame that we have come to this position today, and I would urge my colleagues to cast a vote to override the President's veto.

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