Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007
MEDICARE, MEDICAID, AND SCHIP EXTENSION ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - December 19, 2007)
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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, when this Congress was first gaveled into session by Speaker Pelosi, she declared it the Children's Congress. With that in mind, we set out to enact an ambitious agenda that included legislation to provide health care to 10 million low-income American children. But we were forced to go it alone. Instead of working with us, the President and his Republican foot soldiers in Congress chose to fight us tooth and nail.
We were not deterred by the President or the opposition that we faced from congressional Republicans. Earlier this summer, the House passed the CHAMP Act, which would have strengthened the Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP, and helped secure health care coverage for 10 million American children, 4 million of which are presently uninsured and come from hardworking families.
The CHAMP Act also included dramatic improvements for beneficiaries and providers under Medicare, which, if enacted, would have put the program on a more stable financial footing and ensured that seniors have access to the medical care they need and deserve. The CHAMP Act would have also protected Medicaid from harmful regulations which are now about to go into effect and will cut billions of dollars in critical services for low-income and disabled citizens of all ages.
Now, some may see the defeat of the CHAMP Act this year as a great victory for the President and his Republican allies in Congress. But they may have succeeded in being nothing more than obstructionists. No one has gained anything from these actions by the President or my Republican colleagues, least of all the people who rely on these programs for their health care.
This year, we had a chance to strengthen our Nation's health care safety net and improve the lives of our most vulnerable citizens, the elderly, the young, the poor and the disabled. Instead, both the administration and congressional Republicans are content on leaving here this year with doing the bare minimum on CHIP and Medicare when we could have accomplished so much more to improve the health of millions of Americans.
So now, Madam Speaker, we are left with a package that addresses the most immediate concerns, but leaves any real health care improvements for another day, and I think that is very unfortunate. But with the current President and the current Senate, sadly, this is the best we can do. But I will say, Madam Speaker, the Democrats
are determined in the next year to revive the CHAMP Act and the provisions that we care so much about, because we know that that is the best for the American people.
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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, this bill is the result of Republican intransigence. This is a Band-Aid. And I would remind my Republican colleagues who seem to think that this is good legislation, that every day that goes by, more kids are going to get off SCHIP.
They put out that directive of August 17 that says that if a kid's parents lose their job, they would have to wait 1 year before they could get SCHIP coverage.
So the bottom line is more kids are going to go off SCHIP. We're just barely paying for the kids that are on it now.
They're not willing to do anything. They said that they were willing to negotiate. Well, we had negotiations, our majority leader said, for over 100 hours, and they still could not come up with an agreement.
The President refuses to fund anything. He won't pay through a tobacco increase, the only tax increase. The only thing he says he will do is cut programs to pay for expanded SCHIP that would even make it harder, like cutting Medicare.
So the fact of the matter is we are stuck with this lousy bill that was negotiated between the White House and the Republicans in the Senate. We don't like it. It's simply a temporary measure, and we as Democrats are committed to the fact that in the beginning of next year we're going to take up SCHIP again. We're going to take up the issue of Medicare to try to prevent the privatization that takes place under the current program. We're determined to correct these programs.
But it won't happen if the Republicans continue their intransigence, both at the White House and here in the House of Representatives. There is no reason to believe, based on what they've done in the last 6 months, that this Republican minority wants to work with us to achieve a better result.
So we are stuck with this bill today. It is a Band-Aid approach. We have to pass it so we can continue with the existing programs. But every day that goes by, Medicare suffers because fewer and fewer doctors are likely to take Medicare and fewer and fewer kids are going to get coverage because they're going to have to go to the emergency room because they can't see a doctor on a regular basis. That's not the way to operate. And I have to say that it's totally due to the fault, in my opinion, of the President and the Republicans here in the House of Representatives. I hope this changes in the next year.
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