Medicare and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am pleased to see that after 12 years of temporary patches to delay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate, Congress is finally acting to reform the Medicare physician payment system for the long term. In so doing, we not only ensure access to care for seniors but also help improve the quality of care they receive through Medicare.

However, I am disappointed that the same certainty is not provided to children and families impacted by the Children's Health Insurance program, CHIP. This legislation extends funding for CHIP for 2 years and continues policies that encourage enrollment in the program. But it does not extend this critical funding for a much longer period of time, like the 4 years my colleagues and I have been urging for months. We are missing a crucial opportunity to ensure that children and pregnant women have access to comprehensive, affordable health insurance coverage for years to come. Currently, more than 10 million children benefit from this program. In 2 years, funding for this program will expire, putting children at risk of becoming uninsured once again. Moreover, the bill takes the same temporary approach with respect to the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting, MIECHV, program, Community Health Centers, and other initiatives.

I am also concerned that Medicare beneficiaries will see increases in out-of-pocket costs to help pay for the legislation. Faced with the threat of looming cuts to health care providers and the resulting risk of disruption of services should doctors withdraw from Medicare, we are being forced to instead choose to increase costs on seniors, rather than any number of offsets that could have asked the wealthiest Americans or corporations to pay a little more to ensure that Medicare is protected for everyone. Indeed, the majority in the other body insisted on paying for this bill, at least in part, by increasing these out-of-pocket costs. For a bill designed to protect access to health care for seniors, it should not turn around and then demand they pay more. We should be reaffirming our commitment to protecting Medicare beneficiaries and these cuts do just the opposite. With these provisions not taking effect until 5 years from now, I hope that gives us ample time to revisit this.

After years of disagreements on health care issues, it is good to see that we can move on this bill on a bipartisan basis. So while I have the reservations I have outlined, and will support amendments to address these issues, I will vote for this legislation.

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