Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009
Floor Speech
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2, CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2009 -- (House of Representatives - January 14, 2009)
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Mr. HOYER. I must say, following the last speaker, I think the last speaker is absolutely wrong. I think he misrepresented very substantially the facts of this bill, which strengthens verification.
This administration, the Bush administration, will tell you that, and the governors will tell you that the current verification system is not working, and that, in fact, we strengthen, in this bill, the verification. And of course, although he made it clear that illegal immigrants are not included and are very specifically not included, this bill will make it easier and more facilitate ensuring that objective than the present law.
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Mr. HOYER. If, in fact, in other sections the verification process has not been strengthened, that may be accurate. I haven't seen the CBO report to which you refer. However, the strengthening will preclude that objective from happening, in my opinion.
Madam Speaker, I want you to hear the story of Deamonte Driver. This is from the Washington Post from February 28, 2007.
"12-year-old Deamonte Driver died today of a toothache.'' 12 years of age. "A routine $80 tooth extraction might have saved him. But by the time Deamonte's own aching tooth got any attention, the bacteria from the abscess had spread to his brain, doctors said. After two operations and more than 6 weeks of hospital care, the Prince George's County 12-year-old died.''
If you want a picture of American health care, in all its excellence and in its failures, there it is: The best doctors, the latest technology, 6 weeks of hospital care for a sick boy, at the cost of $250,000, in a country that can't find $80 to fix a toothache.
To paraphrase Adlai Stevenson, American health care swallows tigers whole, but it can choke to death on a gnat. We couldn't find $80, and in the end it cost us a quarter of a million dollars. More importantly, it cost us the life of a young man. A system that makes such errors on a regular basis is both financially foolhardy and morally insupportable.
Yes, on a regular basis, Deamonte Driver's case may be extreme, but it was hardly unique. Every day, uninsured parents are foregoing much cheaper preventive care and using the emergency room as the first line of defense for their children's health. Ironically, the President of the United States, when he vetoed this bill, said that's exactly what they could do, intervene in the most expensive, last ditch intervention in health care. We're all paying for that. We are subsidizing those ER visits, we are dealing with the overburdened hospitals, and we are creating a sicker, less productive work force.
Fixing American health care will take much longer than an afternoon, but if I could pass just one bill today, if I could find the most efficient use of our health care dollars, I'd ensure more children. I think 80 percent of Americans agree with us on that.
One of the previous speakers, a physician on the other side of the aisle, was recognized to speak. I spent, Mr. Dingell spent, Mr. Bachus spent, Mr. Rockefeller spent, Mr. Grassley spent some 30 hours in meetings with that doctor trying to reach a compromise. There were a number of other people in that room. Ultimately, there was no, notwithstanding the changes we made in the bill, there was no willingness to compromise to ensure the children.
There's no more medically pivotal time in life than that of a child. Make it through childhood without checkups, without a doctor's care, and you're still facing a lifetime of endangered health. Every other developed nation in the world seems to get that. Every other developed nation in the world provides its children with health care. Every developed nation makes sure all of its children are covered, with the exception of the United States of America.
This bill brings into the State Children's Health Insurance Program 4 million children not covered today because the President vetoed the CHIP bill, and we could not get 15 additional people in this body to override the veto. We got 45 on the Republican side of the aisle, and all the Democrats, but we couldn't get those extra 15. This bill brings in those 4 million children. It does what President Bush promised to do when he ran for re-election in 2004.
Accepting the Republican nomination in 2004, President Bush said this: ``In a new term, we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions of poor children who are eligible but not signed up for government health insurance programs.'' That's what he promised.
That's what the House and Senate have been pushing to do, what we passed legislation to do, and what the overwhelming majority of Americans have wanted to do for years.
Madam Speaker, we've tried. President Bush vetoed similar bills twice. But we are confident that President-elect Obama sees the issue differently. The American people saw the issue differently. They wanted change. This bill is going to reflect their desire for and vote for change.
This bill gives States permission to waive an arbitrary waiting period of 5 years to enroll immigrant children who are here legally.
Is there anyone here who wants to check on a sick child and say, we know you're here legally, but you've got to wait 5 years? A 1-year-old or a 2-year-old, that's two or three times their lifetime. It doesn't make moral sense to deny those children health services when their parents already pay payroll taxes. It doesn't make public health sense to keep those kids from getting the basic care they need.
As a parent, as a grandfather, and as a great grandfather, very frankly, I want my child in school with healthy children, from wherever they come. And it doesn't make economic sense to subsidize unnecessary emergency room visits.
Madam Speaker, we all know that we're in a severe recession, and it makes this bill more vital than ever, because when we considered this bill last year, we hadn't lost millions of jobs. Millions of parents had not yet lost their health insurance. This legislation is more necessary than ever. More and more Americans are out of work.
More and more family budgets are strained to the breaking point. Today, health coverage for kids could make the difference between a family's economic ruin and economic stability.
As Yale University's Jacob S. Hacker writes, "access to affordable health care could be an immediate lifeline for working families.''
It is in our power to throw that lifeline today. It's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do for our children. It's the right thing to do for our families. It's the right thing to do for our economy, and it is the morally correct thing to do.
Pass this rule, pass this bill, let us send it to President Obama, and he will add the 4 million children, with our help, to health care in the richest land on the face of the Earth.
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