Support for Injured Servicemembers Act

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent, of the 30 minutes that I control, I yield 15 minutes of that to the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. McCrery of Louisiana, to control.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Deal of Georgia.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mrs. Blackburn of Tennessee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Walden of Oregon.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Congressman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).

Madam Speaker, I am proud to yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Dr. Burgess of Denton, Texas.

Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Madam Speaker, is it acceptable under the rule that we are operating under, as long as we control time, to recognize a Member more than once as long as you control the time?

I'm not sure I understand. Let me rephrase my question.

I want to recognize myself now and then recognize myself later in the debate, because my speakers aren't here. Is that acceptable, Madam Speaker?

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, one of the things that has been talked about in this debate is that the pending bill before us does not allow illegal aliens to receive benefits, and there is a section in the bill, section 605 that says that. But it has no enforcement. And in another part of the bill the requirement for citizenship verification is repealed, and the substitution for that is a requirement that a beneficiary or potential beneficiary simply show a Social Security number.

And as we all know, there are millions of fraudulent Social Security numbers floating around. So when we actually do get down to negotiating the conference after this veto is sustained, I hope that my friends in the majority will work with us in the minority to make sure that illegal aliens do not get benefits and that we have the appropriate enforcement mechanism in the bill that we send to the President.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I just have two speakers left, the distinguished minority leader and myself. I'm prepared to do the mini-close. I assume that Ms. Pelosi is going to close for the majority, so we're kind of in a holding pattern here.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, what we have today is a classic case of a Washington, DC, nonintersecting conversation. Since the President vetoed this bill several weeks ago, my friends on the majority side have spent 2 weeks encouraging outside groups and perhaps their political arm, I am not sure about that, to spend millions of dollars in television and radio ads bombarding targeted Republicans to get them to change their vote.

Now, that is only the sixth time in history that we know of that a veto has not been brought to the floor immediately on the President's veto. The result is going to be that when we get to the vote in the next hour or so, the next 30 minutes or so, the President's veto will be sustained. Then, hopefully, we will have the real bipartisan negotiations that should have started 6 or 7 months ago.

It is interesting to me that we are still having a misunderstanding about the basic facts. And the reason is, we have never had a legislative hearing in either the Ways and Means Committee or the Energy and Commerce Committee. We have not had a subcommittee markup in either of the jurisdictional committees. And we really didn't have a markup at full committee, because the original bill for SCHIP was a 500-page mammoth bill that we got at midnight the day before it was supposed to be marked up in the case of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

But once we do sustain the President's veto, we are going to have these negotiations I hope. And first we are going to talk about the kids. Both sides are talking about the kids. Well, here are the facts. Under current law, every child in America who is below 100 percent of poverty is covered by Medicaid. Both parties support that. Under current law, every child in America who lives in a family between 100 and 200 percent of poverty is covered by SCHIP if they will sign up. Now, there are some children and families that won't sign up. In Dallas, Texas, I am told that only 33 percent of the eligible SCHIP children are actually in an SCHIP program. That is a travesty. We ought to do something together to reach out to those children and those families to make sure that they either have SCHIP coverage or private insurance, that they have something. We can work together on that on a bipartisan basis.

Now, once you get above 200 percent of poverty, we have a difference of opinion. The original House bill said go to 400 percent of poverty. That bill is dead. The bill before us goes to 300 percent. It is a legitimate policy argument: If you want to go above and expand the program, how much do you expand it above 200 percent? Do you go to 300 percent? Do you go to 250 percent? The Republican alternative is, let's cover the lowest income kids first. Once we get 90 percent of those kids covered below 200 percent of poverty, let's let States go to 250 percent. That is the Barton-Deal alternative that we have the discharge petition on. But that is a legitimate policy argument.

Now, let's talk about illegal aliens. Under current law, you are not supposed to cover a child of an illegal alien. But they are covered because there is no verification enforcement system. In the pending bill, they have section 605 that says no benefit shall go to children of illegal aliens. But that is

all it says. There is no enforcement mechanism. There is no enforcement mechanism. That is something we can work on in the conference. That is something we can work on together to really put some enforcement to make sure that SCHIP benefits are for citizens and legal residents. We can work on that.

Let's vote to sustain the President's veto, and then let's work together to get a program that really is for the kids, not for adults, that really is for citizens, and that we can afford.

Well, Madam Speaker, there they go again. Once again, we are being forced by the Democratic Leadership of the House to vote on a bill that exists almost exclusively to help Democrats score political points against the President.

We're going to sustain the President's veto today, and we're going to do it because the President did the right thing by vetoing this poorly written expansion of federalized health care that leaves the poorest kids behind. Anybody who cares about needy children can vote against this bad bill proudly.

I'm both proud and concerned that Republicans had no part in writing this legislation. Proud because this bill is an embarrassment. Concerned because we're all supposed to be legislating on behalf of children, and as everybody knows, no Republican Member of this House was even asked for an opinion, much less invited to participate in writing the Democratic SCHIP bill.

I don't even think the Democrats who wrote it understand what they've done. I challenge the supporters of this bill to look people in the eye and say that they understand all of the provisions that are actually in this bill. Because I have some questions for you.

Madam Speaker, it would be a compliment to say that the so-called process which produced this bill is an abuse of our democratic system of Government. It was so much worse than garden-variety abuse. It was pathetic. Yet, I'm sure that some will show up here with a handful of talking points from your Democratic staffers who actually constructed this legislation, and you will explain to us that it is not an abomination at all, but a wondrous triumph of bipartisanship.

Give me the name of one Republican in the entire House of Representatives who directly participated in these discussions. Name just one.

I know that the authors of this bill certainly did not consult with either Mr. Deal or myself, I know that they have not included any Members of the Republican Leadership in the House; and I'm not aware of a single Republican Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Ways and Means Committee being invited to participate in this process.

And although we were excluded from the negotiations and the Democratic Leadership has repeatedly refused to hold a legislative hearing on this bill, we have learned a few facts from the official projections produced by the Congressional Budget Office, and from what I've read, this bill isn't something that I could ever support.

For example, we know that the vast majority of the people added to the SCHIP program under the Democrats' bill will either already have private health insurance or they live in families with incomes too high to be eligible for SCHIP coverage today.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projects that H.R. 976 will lead to over 1.2 million new enrollees will be added to SCHIP as a result of an ``expansion of SCHIP and Medicaid eligibility to new populations.'' This means that these 1.2 million children live in families whose incomes are too high to qualify for the current SCHIP program. On the other hand, CBO projects that only 800,000 currently SCHIP eligible kids will be enrolled as a result of H.R. 976. This means that 50 percent more higher-income kids will be enrolled than currently SCHIP eligible kids.

And who will be paying for this expansion of SCHIP eligibility to higher-income families? Well, according to the Congressional Research Service, the vast majority of the $70 billion in additional tobacco tax revenues will come from low-income families. In fact, the Congressional Research Service said that tobacco taxes are ``the most regressive of the federal taxes.''

So, with H.R. 976, the Democrats really are taxing the poor in order to give to the rich.

In their defense, I guess it is difficult for the Democratic Leadership to know exactly what is in their own bill since it has neither been subject to a single legislative hearing nor conferenced by the House and the Senate.

Madam Speaker, I wonder if someone can explain to me why the Democratic Leadership decided to wait until just days before SCHIP expires to bring their reauthorization to the House floor. We have known for well over 10 years that the current SCHIP authorization would expire on September 30, 2007, and the Democratic Leadership in the House and the Senate have known since early November of 2006 that they would be in charge of actually producing a bill to reauthorize this vital health care program for low-income, uninsured children. Yet, here they were, a full 10 months later, jamming a bill through the House with fewer than three legislative days before the entire program expires and children's health care stops.

Well, Madam Speaker, I was not sent here by the 6th District of Texas to be quiet and do what the gentle lady from San Francisco instructs me to do. I was sent here to represent my constituents' best interests and I demand the ability to do what I have sworn to do.

We all know that the President promised to veto this version of the bill, so why did we waste precious time on a bill that we all know didn't stand a chance of ever becoming law?

While we are down here on the floor participating in this Theatre of the Absurd, the Democratic Leadership is in the back rooms trying to figure how they will extend the SCHIP program for another 6 months or a year. We all know this to be a fact, but I guess the Democrats want to pick a fight with the president so they can pretend that he is against children, and only then will they permit everybody to do the right thing and extend SCHIP.

Madam Speaker, I'm sorry it's come to this. The pettiness of this transparent political strategy to damage and weaken the president is a new low.

I'd hoped that we would not engage in this game, and it's still not too late to stop it. We could start debating how to best extend the SCHIP program so that we can actually do the job people sent us here to do. We still have a chance to write a responsible, long-term reauthorization of the SCHIP program. Now, it's true that writing a solid, bipartisan bill will not give the Democrats the ``political victory'' that they are hoping for, but that's the price that Democrats will have to pay. Given that millions of needy children are depending on us, it doesn't seem like a big price.

I am ready to start today to sit down with the Majority and reach a compromise bill so we can reauthorize this program expeditiously. Short 6-week extensions are irresponsible. We can and should come up with a compromise that can be signed into law and that ensures that low income children continue to have access to the SCHIP program. We should not drag this political process out any longer than today. Let us dispense with politics and commence with legislating.

Here's a way that will get me to call the President and urge him to sign up fast.

Require that States find and enroll 90 percent of the kids under 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level before they go looking for more people with higher incomes.

States should be free to spend their own money, of course, but Federal taxpayers in 49 States shouldn't be made to subsidize the health care premiums for one State making $80,000 a year.

No adults except pregnant women, please. No more childless couples and, beginning in 2009, and Medicaid-eligible adults should move to Medicaid.

Let's preserve the requirement that States document the citizenship and identity of Medicaid applicants. Just writing down a Social Security number doesn't make you a citizen.

A bipartisan effort could pass this bill in a week, and doing so would make sense to poor kids, their families and nearly everybody outside the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Madam Speaker, I ask that the gentleman's words be taken down.

Madam Speaker, I want to yield our last minute to the distinguished minority leader from the State of the current number one college football team in the country, Ohio State, Mr. Boehner of Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize a member of the committee, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), for 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I would yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, we have spent most of today actually trying to read the bill. I have the bill in front of me. In this 2-minute period, I want to discuss section 605 of the bill. Section 605 of the bill has the title: ``No Federal funding for illegal aliens.'' It is a very brief section, two lines: ``Nothing in this act allows Federal payment for individuals who are not legal residents.'' That is it.

So the title of section 605 would have you believe there's going to be no Federal funding for illegal aliens. When you specifically read the section, it just says nothing in the act allows payment. It doesn't prohibit it.

Now, if the authors of section 605 really don't want illegal aliens to receive funding under this bill, this section ought to read something like this: ``This act prohibits Federal payments for individuals who are not legal residents or citizens.''

Mr. Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent to substitute the language that I just read: ``This act prohibits Federal payments for individuals who are not legal residents or citizens.''

Mr. Speaker, my unanimous consent request is to substitute for what is in the bill: ``Nothing in this act allows Federal payment for individuals who are not legal residents,'' that is in the bill, I ask unanimous consent to substitute: ``This act prohibits Federal payments for individuals who are not legal residents or citizens.''

The gentleman from Michigan has objected, and I respect that objection. But what that means is that they want illegal residents of the United States of America to get these benefits. That is what the objection means. So for that reason alone, I would ask that we vote against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge my good friend, Mr. Rangel, the distinguished chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. I now know who the problem is; it is those big, bad bully Republicans in the Senate. I didn't realize that.

It is my time.

Now that I know what the problem is, I am going to call over there. They are good friends of mine, Mr. Hatch and Mr. Grassley. And tell them that now that we have identified the problem, will they accept the language that Mr. Dingell objected to, and when we are here next week on the House floor when this bill is vetoed by the President, I would expect my good friend from New York to accept that change in the language.

I know we can. I think my time has expired, but I just want to commend him because now I know where the problem is. It is those big bad bully Republicans and these two wily negotiators, Mr. Rangel and Mr. Dingell, who are two of the most distinguished, able legislators in the history of the Congress, have been buffaloed by a couple of scallywags over in the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, since we have not had a markup and since we have not had a legislative hearing, and I know it is cumbersome to actually refer to specific sections of the bill on the floor, especially of what is portrayed to be a conference report, which this is not, which is not amendable, but I want to go back and talk about this eligibility.

There is a section in the bill, section 203: ``State option to rely on findings from an express lane agency to conduct simplified eligibility determinations.'' On the face of it, that would seem to be a good thing. This section is very complicated. It is 10 to 15 pages long.

But it does say in this section that a parent of a child that might be eligible can self-verify. If you are approached by one of these express lane agencies, it is up to the parent of the child to self- determine, to self-certify that they are indeed eligible. That would appear to be something that we need to work on.

Then it goes on when it defines the actual express lane agencies on page 123 of the bill, in subparagraph (F), it goes through and lists the kind of public agencies that are express lane agencies. They apparently include Medicare part D, Medicaid, Food Stamp Act, Head Start Act, National School Lunch Act, Child Nutrition Act, Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, United States Housing Act, Native American Housing Assistance Act, and so on and so on.

Again on the face of it, those are all agencies that might be of some assistance, but I doubt that their requirements are the same as the requirements for the base bill for SCHIP in

terms of income eligibility and age determination. For example, I doubt that the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act has an age requirement at all.

So again, when the President vetoes this bill and we are back working together on a bipartisan basis, these are the kinds of things I hope to clarify and tighten up.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a distinguished Member from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Speaker, I also only have one speaker, that's myself, to close. What is the order of closure?

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

And since I really have a real minute and a half, I'm going to try to go through this as quickly as possible.

Republicans want to reauthorize the SCHIP program. We do want to refocus it on the original intent of the program, which was near-low- income children in families between 100 and 200 percent of poverty. We understand that

in the 10 years of the program's existence that waivers have been given and there are some States that cover up to 350 percent of poverty, and some States cover adults.

But as our distinguished Speaker just said, Republicans are for the children, and we want to focus the SCHIP funds on those children and those families that don't have private insurance and aren't covered by Medicaid; and we believe that that is children in families somewhere between 100 percent of poverty and 200 percent of poverty.

And when the President rightfully vetoes this bill, and when the House of Representatives rightfully sustains the President's veto, it is my hope that we will get with the other body and the Democratic leadership at the leadership level and Chairman Dingell and Chairman Rangel, and we will work out a bipartisan compromise that does cover the health care needs of the needy children of America that currently, in spite of our best efforts, do not have the health insurance and the health coverage that they need.

To make that possible, we have to defeat this bill, or at least get enough votes to sustain the President's veto of this bill, and then work together in the near future to do some of the things that we have talked about on the floor this evening.

Vote ``no'' on the SCHIP bill this evening.

Mr. Speaker, here we are again.

Once again, we are being forced by the Democratic Leadership of the House to vote on a bill of vital importance to millions of our constituents without the ability to actually analyze its contents.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, we are being forced by the Democratic Leadership to vote less than 24 hours after they introduced a bill that is hundreds of pages long and spends hundreds of billions of the taxpayers' dollars.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, we are being forced to vote on a bill that was concocted in secret and unveiled in the middle of the night.

When this sort of thing happens, everybody wonders what the Majority is trying to hide, and why they need to hide anything.

I truly hope that the Democratic Leadership does not expect me to vote in favor of a 299-page bill that Republicans saw for the first time at 6:36 p.m. yesterday evening. I believe in faith, but not in blind faith.

I challenge the supporters of this bill to come to the floor of this House, look people in the eye, and say that they understand all of the provisions that are actually in this bill. Because I have some questions for you.

Mr. Speaker, it would be a compliment to say that the so-called process which produced this bill is an abuse of our democratic system of government. It was so much worse than garden-variety abuse. It was a travesty and an abomination, and it was pathetic. Yet, I'm sure that some will show up here with a handful of talking points from the staff who actually wrote this legislation, and explain to us that it is not a pathetic abomination, but a wondrous triumph of bipartisanship.

I challenge any Member that would claim that this bill is bipartisan to give me the name of one Republican in the entire House of Representatives who directly participated in these discussions. Name just one.

I know that the authors of this bill certainly did not consult with either Mr. Deal or myself; I know that they have not included any Members of the Republican Leadership in the House; and I'm not aware of a single Republican Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Ways and Means Committee being invited to participate in this process.

Now we have not had time to analyze this product that the Democrats are going to bring to the floor today but the Congressional Budget Office has. Yesterday at the Rules Committee, it was stated that this bill would put 4.4 million new people on to SCHIP. However, according to the CBO close to a million of those children were already enrolled in Medicaid and over 1.5 million of those newly enrolled in SCHIP were already enrolled in private coverage.

It was also stated last night at the Rules Committee that this bill does not expand eligibility under SCHIP. If that is the case then why does the CBO estimate 1.2 million of the newly enrolled people in SCHIP come from expanding the populations that are eligible for the program? Now those comments last night could have been misstatements because people just really do not know what is in this bill. It is difficult to know what is in a bill that no one has seen.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if someone can explain to me why the Democratic Leadership has decided to wait until just days before SCHIP expires to bring their reauthorization to the House floor. We have known for well over 10 years that the current SCHIP authorization would expire on September 30, 2007, and the Democratic Leadership in the House and the Senate have known since early November that they would be in charge of actually producing a bill to reauthorize this vital health care program for low-income, uninsured children. Yet, here they are, a full 10 months later, jamming a bill through the House with fewer than three legislative days before the entire program expires and children's health care stops.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I was not sent here by the 6th District of Texas to be quiet and do what the gentle lady from San Francisco instructs me to do. I was sent here to represent my constituents' best interests and I demand the ability to do what I have sworn to do.

We all know that the President has promised to veto this version of the bill, so why are we wasting precious time on a bill that we all know doesn't stand a chance of ever becoming law?

While we are down here on the floor participating in this Theatre of the Absurd, the

Democratic Leadership is in the back rooms trying to figure how they will extend the SCHIP program for another 6 months or a year. We all know this to be a fact, but I guess the Democrats want to pick a fight with the president so they can pretend that he is against children, and only then will they permit everybody to do the right thing and extend

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank the distinguished chairman for recalling to mind that opening day here when I accepted the gavel on behalf of the children of America, all of the children of America. And when we had this debate before in Congress, we talked about perhaps the children listening to this debate, hearing what Members of Congress were saying. And I expressed my hope that they would consider this the children's Congress.

I thank the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel, for his leadership, and Mr. Stark, the Chair of the Health Subcommittee for helping to make this the children's Congress with this legislation. I thank the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee for his tremendous leadership.

Mr. Rangel and Mr. Dingell went into the conversations with the Republican leadership in the Senate on this bill, true champions of America's children, knowing the facts and figures, the provisions, every provision of the bill with such authority as they argued on behalf of America's children so effectively that this legislation before us reflects many of the provisions that were in the House bill. We had to agree to the Senate language in terms of the $35 billion and the pay-for with the tax on tobacco. We had hoped that we could do more in terms of the money allocated for this purpose so that we could cover more children.

As I praise Mr. Dingell, I also want to acknowledge the fabulous leadership of Mr. Pallone, Chairman Pallone of the Subcommittee on Health in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Because of their leadership, we were able to join Senator Reid, Chairman Baucus, Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking Member Grassley, and Ranking Member Hatch in having a very bipartisan conversation on this subject. The people who were in the room that evening cared about passing a serious piece of legislation to expand health care for America's children. Not to expand the eligibility, as some on the other side of this House would have you believe, but to expand the number of kids who could be served if they met the eligibility. I, myself, had hoped that we could go beyond that and have eligible children in America who were legal immigrants. I was told that that would not fly in the Senate; that is a fight we will hold for another day.

But I am pleased as one who represents a minority majority district

from a majority minority State, where our State is blessed with a beautiful diversity, that of the additional children, nearly 4 million additional children covered, 67 percent of those children are minority children. Two-thirds of those children are children from families who are working hard, playing by the rules, lifting themselves out of poverty. They are the working poor in America. They are those who have aspired to the middle class to change that status and want to stay there. They simply don't make enough money to afford the private health insurance that this SCHIP initiative enables them to do. In fact, 72 percent, my colleagues might be interested to know that 72 percent of the children on this SCHIP program get their health coverage from private health insurance.

There are many misrepresentations, and I think they are probably unwitting because I assume that every person in this Congress cares about insuring as many children in our country as possible. How could it not be so? It is a deeply held value in our country that our children, as President Kennedy said, are our greatest resource and our best hope for the future. We must invest in them. We have a moral responsibility to do so.

When we had the debate on this bill and it first came to the floor, I was delighted in quoting a poem from my youth from Longfellow when he said, ``Between the dark and the daylight, when the night is beginning to lower, comes a pause in the day's occupation that is known as the children's hour.'' This is the children's hour for us in the Congress of the United States.

I quoted Longfellow then, I am reminded of the Bible tonight, and I speak with all of the sincerity and all of the hope to President Bush in the hope that he will change his mind to dig deeply into his heart and think about the children in America who don't have health care. Because, if not, I think that the President is giving new meaning to the words ``suffer, little children.'' Suffer, little children, if your parents can't afford health insurance, but they are working hard and they are not on Medicaid, but you will suffer because they are struggling to give you the best possible future. Suffer, little children, if your family has played by the rules and they have come to this country and you are here as a legal immigrant, because if you are sick, you will not get health care unless your parents can afford private insurance. Suffer, little children, if you are sick because you haven't had the proper nutrition, the proper prevention, the proper early intervention to your affliction, that you should go directly to the emergency room. But until you can get into that emergency room with enough of a serious illness, you will suffer. That is just not right.

I would hope that the President would have had a change of heart and mind since he was Governor of Texas. When he was Governor of Texas, the SCHIP program there, in meeting the needs of the children of Texas, ranked 49th in the country; 49th in the country. Forty-eight States were doing better in meeting the health needs of their children as reflected in the outreach of the SCHIP program. Does that mean that Texas is the 49th wealthiest State in the Union, that the children in that State can all afford private health care? I don't think so, especially since that State, as with mine, is blessed with beautiful diversity and people, again, families who come to America, families who are part of our country, who are struggling to make ends meet to build a better future for their children. And building that better future is what our country is all about, and those newcomers make America more American. I heard the President say that.

We also heard him say that in this term of office that he would enroll every child who is eligible. I am sure our distinguished majority leader will bring that to the attention of this body.

What is interesting about this is that the President, if he persists in vetoing this bill, and by the way, you don't have to be a Latin scholar to know that ``veto'' means ``I forbid.'' With that pen, the President says, I forbid struggling families in America to have health care for their children. I forbid every child to be treated the same if they have an ailment.

How did any one of us decide that we were going to choose, you will have health care and you will not, in a country as great as ours when we are talking about our children? We are talking about our children.

So that is why the Conference of Mayors, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a bipartisan organization, has overwhelmingly supported this legislation. That is why 43 Governors sent us a letter in July urging us to come to bipartisan agreement on legislation that would reauthorize SCHIP to care for many more children in our country. So when I hear the President say that we don't want to help children, we just want to do politics, I don't think he means that. So I hope he doesn't mean that he is going to veto the bill.

Senator Grassley said of the President: The President's understanding of our bill is wrong. I urge him to reconsider his veto message based on our bill, not something that someone on his staff told him wrongly is in the bill. Actually, he said, ``in my bill,'' Senator Grassley said. And Senator Hatch said: We are talking about kids who basically don't have coverage. I think the President has some pretty bad advice on this.

And I want to also commend Representative Ray LaHood and join you, Mr. Chairman, in saying what a privilege it is to call him ``colleague'' and to serve with him in the Congress, and thank him for his leadership in making a distinction between what is about the children and what is about politics in this House.

I talked about the mayors; I talked about the Governors. Nearly 300 organizations in our country, alphabetically from AARP to YMCA and everything alphabetically in between, Families USA.

I heard someone say the doctors should be making the decisions. The American Medical Association firmly supports this bill. The President of the AMA stood with us in a press conference today to support this legislation. The Society of Pediatrics. Everyone who has anything to do or cares about children in our country knows that this bill is the way to go. It is not everything I want, believe me, it is not the bill I would have written. I would have been far more generous and it would have been paid for in perhaps a different way, but it would have been paid for; because in terms of bringing benefits to our children, we have absolutely no intention of heaping debt onto them.

The Catholic Hospitals Association, again, the list goes on and on about who supports this bill. It is a long list; it is a comprehensive list. And I might include in it that, across the country, overwhelmingly, the American people know and respect the value of taking care of America's children, all of America's children. Two- thirds, two-thirds of those polled among Republican voters, 2-1, they support passing this legislation and having it signed into law.

Why does the President want to isolate himself from caring for America's children? Let's hope and let's pray that a very big, strong bipartisan vote tonight will send him a message to rethink his position.

I see a child in the Chamber. Our constant inspiration of what we do here is supposed to be about the future, and the future demands that we invest in health, the education, and the well-being of our children.

So, my colleagues, vote as if the children are watching. Please vote as if the children are watching, and please send them a message that this is the children's Congress.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I commend him for his exceptional leadership on this issue.

The issue of health care for Americans has been a signature issue for the Dingell family. Mr. Dingell, the distinguished chairman's father, was the author of legislation for access to health care for all Americans. He continues that tradition. He was in the chair the day and gaveled the vote on Medicare. So thank you for your years of experience and leadership, and, again, your leadership on this important issue of insuring our children.

This isn't about an issue; this is about a value. Thank you, Mr. Stark, thank you, Mr. Pallone, for your leadership, and thanks to the distinguished Chair of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel, for his important and relentless leadership on this issue.

My colleagues, as I listen to the debate today, I hear a lot of subterfuge and distractions; but the fact is that this is a discussion about America's children and it is a discussion about America. There is no industrialized country in the world that anyone respects that does not provide health insurance for its children. We are the exception. This is not a designation to be proud of.

But the American people in their wisdom have this not as an issue, but as a value, as an ethic. That is why I am so proud of what has transpired since we took our first vote on this bill. That day I said we could establish ourselves as ``the Children's Congress,'' and we did. Work remains to be done to bring that to fruition.

In the meantime, across our country, Democrats and Republicans, Governors and mayors, people who work with children or have the responsibility of delivering a system of health care have been advocating for this reauthorization of SCHIP that we have before us today. Every organization you can name, from AARP to YWCA, and everything in between, the American Medical Association, Catholic Hospital Association, Families USA, every organization you can name is supporting this legislation.

I am so proud, because earlier this week Easter Seals representatives covered the Hill with hundreds of advocates visiting Members' offices. We were pleased to hear from the president of Easter Seals, President James Williams, who said, ``Without health care coverage, our early intervention in other programs for children cannot be successful.'' That is why the Easter Seals organization was here.

He was very eloquent in his advocacy, but no more eloquent than the young children who were here to tell us their stories.

Today, representatives of the March of Dimes, over 400 of them, are visiting offices on Capitol Hill. And Jennifer Howse, president of the March of Dimes, has stated that SCHIP ``is the health insurance lifeline for millions of low-income children who have no other way to obtain coverage.''

Our country has put poor children first; that's called Medicaid. The poorest of the poor children in our country are able to receive health care through Medicaid.

I wish you could have heard the stories of some of the parents who told us, Bethany's parents who were in the other day. The press asked them if they were afraid their family would come under attack because they were lobbying for SCHIP. They said we are already under attack, but we are proud to come forward to support this initiative. We are not proud of the fact that we are low income, they said. We are trying very hard to lift ourselves up into the middle class. We work very hard not to be on Medicaid, but to be among the working poor, it is not something that we brag about, but SCHIP is something that we need.

So when the President wants to have 4 or 5 million children instead of 10 million children in his initiative, is he the one, the decider, who wants to go to that family and say, Your child is out? Bethany had heart problems from birth. She was 2 years old in July. They have been told by some people as they lobbied, The baby is better now; you don't need SCHIP anymore. Well, she does.

They said, We are not just lobbying for Bethany; we are lobbying for all of the children.

As far as the March of Dimes is concerned, and I am proudly wearing their pin, they deal with children with birth defects, and it might interest you to know that one of eight children in America each year is born prematurely, around half a million babies born prematurely. Many of those children, I am not saying all, but many of those children have ongoing conditions and preconditions that bar them from

getting any health insurance. Those children need SCHIP. They are in the category that makes them eligible.

And that category does not include people earning $83,000 a year. So while some of you may use that as an excuse not to vote for the program, I hope you know intellectually it is not a reason to vote against this initiative. There are currently no children enrolled in SCHIP with family income of 400 percent of the Federal poverty level, $83,000 for a family of four. In fact, 91.3 percent of the children enrolled in SCHIP are in families of four that make less than 200 percent of poverty. And 99.95 percent, just a hair under 100 percent of them, are in families under 300 percent of poverty.

So this is a sad thing. We are asking people who are working hard and playing by the rules, they are taking care of their families. They could have stayed out of work and stayed on Medicaid, but that is not what we are encouraging people to do in our country. We are encouraging them to move on and upward. And these families have to come forward and say why they have not attained the American Dream of enough wealth to afford $1,200 a month in health insurance premiums, and that's a big order.

I am so pleased, though, that with the work they have done, Easter Seals, Red Cross and all of the organizations I mentioned earlier, and the Governors and mayors, et cetera, that now 82 percent of the American people support this initiative. If I said it before, I want to say it again.

And let me also say that there are some myths about SCHIP. Well, I don't think that they are myths; I think they are excuses not to vote for the bill. I mentioned one of them. Another one is about illegal aliens.

Clearly, the bill states ``no Federal funding for illegal aliens.'' It says it, but it is also the law of the land. Illegal aliens do not get benefits, so don't use that as an excuse to deprive 10 million children in our country who are eligible for enrollment in SCHIP that they shouldn't get it.

This has been a bipartisan effort, and some of what has been said about SCHIP is simply not true. But don't take it from me. Senator Orrin Hatch, former Chair of the Health Committee in the Senate, now the ranking member, said: ``I believe that some have given the President bad advice on this matter because I believe supporting this bipartisan compromise to provide health coverage to low-income children is the morally right thing to do. If we were truly compassionate, it seems to me, we would endorse this program.'' Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah.

Senator Charles Grassley, former chairman of the Finance Committee, another committee of jurisdiction and now the ranking member said: ``The President's claims about SCHIP are flatly incorrect. The SCHIP bill is not a government takeover of health care. Screaming `socialized medicine' during a health care debate is like screaming `fire' in a crowded theater. It is intended to cause hysteria that diverts people from looking at the facts.'' Senator Grassley, Republican Senator from Iowa.

So, my colleagues, we have a decision today to override the President's veto, which would be, in my view, the right thing to do for our children and for our country. It is not about compassion. It is about fairness. It is about fairness. And this is a bill again that has been bipartisan in its development and required enormous sacrifice from the Democrats in the House of Representatives. We had a much higher goal. This is what is achievable for the children. It should have been signed by the President. There is no reason that he has given that is consistent with the facts.

And so I urge my colleagues to think about the children, to think about Bethany and think about a little boy, Zeke, who was in my office this morning. He is the ambassador of the March of Dimes for 2007. He is 8 years old, born prematurely at a pound and a half, and now going out and speaking on behalf of the needs of other children.

The President is isolated in this. Don't join him in his isolation. Come forward on behalf of the children and let's truly send a signal that we are about the future. I tried to do that when I was sworn in by being surrounded by children. It was a spontaneous moment, but it was one that was clear in its message: We are gaveling this House to order on behalf of the children.

There is nothing more important that we have to do in our work than make sure that our children are healthy and safe. Today we have an opportunity to do that. Let's not miss that opportunity. Let's give a vote for the children and against the President's veto.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to H. Res. 675, I call up from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 976) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax relief for small businesses, and for other purposes, with Senate amendments thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to H. Res. 675, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include therein extraneous matter on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 976, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007.

Ten years ago a Republican Congress and a Democratic President passed a landmark program to reach children who had fallen through the cracks of the health care system. These kids weren't poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, and their parents, most of whom worked, couldn't afford health insurance on their own.

Today this program provides health care for 6 million children across the Nation. Those 6 million kids today are in jeopardy because this successful program will expire September 30. The legislation before us will continue helping these 6 million of our children and extend health care to 4 million more of our young people.

This bill is for parents like Ms. Molina, a mother of two children who worked two part-time jobs but still could not afford health insurance. CHIP got her kids treatment for dental work, two sprained ankles, one broken arm, and a severe burn.

It's for parents like Ms. Mingeldorff, the mother of a child born 25 weeks prematurely who would have had to turn down a job without health insurance because it would have made her ineligible for Medicaid.

This bill is for every child who needs a vaccination, a cavity filled, chemotherapy, insulin, antidepressants, or other life- sustaining health care.

I urge my colleagues to vote for the children in your district and to remember this legislation will provide health care for 6 million who are now deriving that and 4 million more. The issue here is are you for or against health care for the kids under the SCHIP program?

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey, the chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Pallone.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, with affection and respect for my good friend from Texas, I would observe that none of the abuses that he points out have been found in the years in which this legislation has been in place, and there are none of the abuses that he would find here going to come forward.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 1 minute to my friend, the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps), a real expert in the field of health care and a caring and concerned practitioner as a nurse. We are grateful that she is with us.

Reserving the right to object, will the gentleman restate his unanimous consent request?

Mr. Speaker, that would contravene the understandings we had with our good friends in the Senate who insisted on this language. I have to object.

Mr. Speaker, I would observe an interesting point, and that is the Congressional Budget Office says that we are taking care of 4 million additional kids who are identical in all particulars to those we now care for under SCHIP. There is no vast increase in socialized medicine or anything of that sort, as we hear from the other side.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 1 minute to a very able member of our committee, the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and a privilege for me to yield time to a distinguished member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the respected gentlewoman from New Mexico, a very valuable member of our committee (Mrs. Wilson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 1 minute.

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard) 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield myself 2 minutes.

We have here before us a bill which gives $35 billion to strengthen and improve children's health coverage. It protects 6 million children today covered by SCHIP. It adds an additional 4 million. It is the largest investment in children's health since the passage of the original Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997.

It provides $300 million in outreach grants for the States, community organizations, tribal organizations, and national initiatives. It provides a new express lane initiative for one-stop enrollment. It facilitates enrollments for newborns so coverage starts immediately. It does more than this. It revises the current SCHIP program formula to more accurately attract State need in that it follows the House provisions.

It provides the children enrollment program contingencies adjustment allotments to States to succeed in reaching the eligible but the unenrolled.

It does more. It provides dental coverage for CHIP children. It also provides mental health coverage for children. It provides grant money for diabetes clarification and prevention. It clarifies the coverage of school-based clinic services through the CHIP program. It creates a new option for CHIP programs to subsidize employer options and employer coverage for children whose parents may already have access to coverage.

It does not do any of the things that were charged on the other side because it does not change the law that CHIP now has in place. It just offers additional benefits to children under the SCHIP program.

It is a program which will cover 4 million more kids. It has to be passed by the first of the next month or else all of these kids are going to lose their coverage.

I was at the Governors' meeting in northern Michigan, and the one thing that the Governors were unanimous on is that we need to pass this SCHIP because it is an essential program and an essential part of their program for the care of our kids.

It is a piece of legislation that will make this country better. Take care of our kids. See to it that we do the job that we should in making health care available for all of our kids.

I yield back the balance of my time, excepting I'm going to save time to yield to my dear friend, the majority leader, to close.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to the distinguished majority leader the balance of my time for purposes of closing.

Mr. Speaker, I insert these remarks into the Record in response to some unfortunate remarks made on the House floor regarding a provision in the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, H.R. 976. A statement was made suggesting that a certain provision had been inserted in the bill to solely benefit my home State of Michigan, a statement that could not be further from the truth. The provision for which this accusation was made in reality would ensure that all States would not be penalized due to factors in Medicaid funding that are beyond their control.

The Medicaid Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, FMAP, is the formula used to calculate the amount of Federal funding distributed to States to offset Medicaid expenses. The Federal Government's share of a State's Medicaid funding is based on the State's per capita income. Put simply, States with lower per capita incomes receive more Federal Medicaid funding; States with higher per capita incomes receive lower Federal Medicaid funding.

Due to recent changes to accounting rules, the current FMAP formula needs to be updated. Accounting rules that require employers to pre- fund employee pension and insurance funds may cause a State's per capita income to be calculated far higher than it really is. To

comply with the rules, employers may occasionally have to make large transfers to a pension or insurance fund. This money is counted in the calculation of a State's per capita income in the year of the transfer, even though it may not be paid out for years. When this occurs, a State then appears wealthier than it is, causing the State to lose Medicaid funding.

The FMAP adjustment included in the CHIP Reauthorization Act corrects this unfair penalty. It simply ensures that when an employer makes a significantly disproportionate pension or insurance contribution, the State is not denied much-needed Medicaid funding.

This adjustment provision is not limited to any single State. In fact it now applies to three States, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. It may well be that many more States will have cause to complain about this soon, unless it is corrected. It would apply to any State in any instance where there is a significantly disproportionate employer pension or insurance fund contribution that exceeds 25 percent of a State's increase in personal income for a year.