SCHIP Extension Act of 2007

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 675 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman please state his point of order?

Mr. Speaker, I move to table the appeal of the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous materials into the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 6 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 675 provides a rule for consideration of the Senate amendments to H.R. 976, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act.

The rule permits the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce to move that the House concur in the Senate amendments with the amendments printed in the Rules Committee report.

The rule waives all points of order against the motion except those arising under clause 10 of rule XXI.

Finally, the rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided among and controlled by the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today represents a defining historic moment for this House. Members of this body will be faced with the simple choice: Will you vote to provide health insurance to millions of children, or will you vote to take health insurance away from the children who currently have it?

Today, over 45 million people living in this country woke up without health care. Millions of them are children whose families make too much to be eligible for Medicaid but not enough to purchase their own insurance.

Studies have shown that the number of uninsured children jumped by 710,000

last year. That is unconscionable; and under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi and the new Democratic Congress, we have begun to change it.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, currently provides health care to over 6 million children; but the program will expire in just 6 days unless we act to reauthorize it.

Historically, the SCHIP program has enjoyed bipartisan support. The bill before us today represents a careful, bipartisan compromise that enjoys the support of people like Senator Chuck Grassley, Senator Orrin Hatch, Congressman Ray LaHood, and Congresswoman Heather Wilson.

Frankly, Mr. Speaker, the bill before us does not go as far as I would like. I prefer the bill this House passed a few weeks ago. The House-passed bill not only expanded the SCHIP program to 1 million more children than the bill we'll be voting on today; it also leveled the playing field by adjusting the reimbursements for the Medicare Advantage Program, a program that is in dire need of reform. But I will not and I cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the very good, and this is a very good bill.

Under this agreement, health insurance coverage will be provided to millions of children who do not have it today. Quality dental coverage will be provided to all enrolled children. The agreement ensures that States will offer mental health services on par with medical and surgical benefits covered under SCHIP, and the bill also provides States the option to cover prenatal care, ensuring healthy babies and healthy moms.

Now, contrary to the White House rhetoric, the bulk of the children who would gain coverage are poor and near-poor children who are uninsured, not middle-income children with private coverage.

The President would like to suggest that SCHIP is Congress's way of socializing medicine and undermining private health insurance plans, which is interesting, considering that just yesterday this bill was endorsed by America's Health Insurance Plans, the Nation's largest insurance lobbying group. It is also important to note, Mr. Speaker, that this bill is fully paid for. This represents a sharp change from earlier bills that the President enthusiastically supported from the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill to the Republican energy plans to his tax cuts for the rich, which were all financed by massive amounts of deficit spending.

The President has threatened to veto this bill, Mr. Speaker. That takes my breath away. He didn't veto billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies that were gouging people at the pump. He didn't veto billions of dollars in no-bid defense contracts. But he will veto a modest bipartisan bill to provide health care coverage for millions of low- and moderate-income American children?

Now, some of my friends on the other side of the aisle would say that we should simply extend the current SCHIP program, but what they won't tell you is that the spending level supported by the President is not enough even to provide continued coverage for all the children who are currently enrolled. In other words, Mr. Speaker, those who support the President would take health care away from over 800,000 kids who have it today. That is not acceptable. That is cruel.

As the Catholic Health Association has said, ``Temporary extensions and/or inadequate funding levels will lead to children losing coverage. That would be an enormous step back for our Nation and a retreat from our collective commitment to cover uninsured children.''

Mr. Speaker, this is a defining moment for this Congress. With a ``yes'' vote on this bill, we can improve the lives of millions of children and their families. A ``no'' vote is a vote to take health care away from some of the most vulnerable members of the American family.

The choice is clear. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to our next speaker, I just respond to the gentleman from Texas by saying, he talks about this Republican vision for health care; but if my memory is serving me correctly, the Republicans were in charge of the Congress for many years, too many years, if you ask me, and they had the President of the United States of the same party while they were in control of both Congresses.

What they presided over with all their control, this Republican vision that the gentleman from Texas talks about, resulted in more and more and more, millions and millions more Americans falling into the ranks of the uninsured. And many of them are children. Too many are children. We are trying to fix that here. We think it is unconscionable in the richest country on the face of this Earth that millions of children go without health insurance.

Let me just say one other thing. The gentleman made an allusion, too, that this bill would make it easier to enroll illegal immigrants. I want to ask my friend from Texas to read the bill. Section 605, no Federal funds for illegal immigrants. Nothing in this Act allows Federal payment for residents who are not legal residents.

Now, I know that immigrant bashing is the last bastion of the politically desperate, but the fact of the matter is facts are facts. And on documentation, only my Republican friends would argue that poor children should have passports as though they are jetting off to Paris for the spring fashion shows.

The bottom line is, what the gentleman is raising on that level is totally unwarranted.

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

I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question of the gentleman from California.

We have all of our time scheduled. I'm sorry.

We are literally filled up.

Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry that the gentleman from California wasn't impressed with the names of the Republican legislators that I met who, I think, have impeccable conservative credentials. But this is a bipartisan effort. In fact, unlike when he was the chairman of the Rules Committee and his party was in control of Congress, bipartisanship now means more than just one Member of the opposing party.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert in the Record a letter that's in enthusiastic support of this bill sent to Speaker Pelosi signed by 16 other Republicans, and there are many, many more who I hope will support this bill.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, September 19, 2007.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker, House of Representatives, The Capitol, Washington,

Mr. Speaker, let me just say a couple of things with regard to process. The gentleman knows, everybody else knows, the gentleman should know that his Republican colleagues in the Senate blocked a motion to go to conference.

The SCHIP program expires in 6 days, and we don't have time for a House version of a filibuster. A dozen States will run out of SCHIP funding if we do not act. Now is the time to act. So if you want to make sure that those currently enrolled continue to get the health care coverage, then you've got to vote for this. And if you want more children to be enrolled, then you have to vote for this.

On the issue of legal immigrants, I agree. I think all of us here agree that the legal immigrants should be included. The reality is there were not enough Republicans who agree. The Republican leadership has been awful on this issue. And the Republicans in the Senate have said that adding a legal immigrant provision would have killed the bill in the Senate. That is the gentleman's party.

Let me also remind Members of this House that you had an opportunity to vote for an SCHIP that covered legal immigrants. That is what we voted on here in the House, and you all voted ``no.'' You voted ``no'' on that. You voted not to extend coverage for those legal immigrants in this country, those children of legal immigrants. So I'm not quite sure what you're trying to do here, other than trying to delay this process so we don't get this bill passed.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

(Ms. MATSUI asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, let me remind my colleagues that this program expires in 6 days and that the Republicans in the Senate blocked a motion to go to conference. That's why we are here. The other reason why we are here is we want to make sure that 10 million children in this country get health insurance.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee (Mr. Rangel).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

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

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying that this is a proud day for the House of Representatives. If we can pass the bill and send it to the President, that will guarantee 10 million children who don't have health insurance currently that they will get health insurance. That is something we can be proud of. That is an accomplishment. That is results.

We have heard a lot of excuses from the other side. A lot of my friends say, ``I love SCHIP, but I just don't want to vote for it. I love all of our children in this country. I believe everybody should have insurance, but I am not willing to vote to make sure that they have insurance.''

Well, Mr. Speaker, that doesn't cut it. The American people are sick of the stalling tactics. They are sick of the excuses. They are sick of the lack of results that they have seen in the area of making sure that everybody in this country gets health insurance. And that is one of the reasons why, I should tell the gentleman from Texas, why his party lost in the last election, because it was perceived by the American people that his party wasn't responding to the real challenges and the real needs of the American people, that they were indifferent to the plight of uninsured children across this country.

It is time to do the right thing, Mr. Speaker. As I said in the very beginning of this debate, the choice really is very simple, will you vote to provide health insurance to millions of children, or will you vote to take health insurance away from children who currently have it? This is the choice. Voting ``no'' or voting for all the procedural motions that the gentleman from Texas has put forward will basically result in children currently who have insurance losing that insurance, because the President's plan doesn't provide nearly enough money to cover those who are already enrolled in the program. But we need to do better.

The bottom line is that we are the richest country on the face of the Earth. It is unconscionable that every person in this country does not have health care. It is even more outrageous that our children don't have health insurance. It is, quite frankly, outrageous that the President of the United States is holding a veto threat over this bill, a bill to guarantee that more of our children have health insurance. Of all the things he could possibly veto, this is where he draws the line in the sand when it comes to making sure that our kids get the health care they deserve? It takes my breath away when I think that this is the issue that he chooses to have a fight over, health insurance for our children. I am grateful that there are Republicans who are going to join with us on this vote.

So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, today is a defining moment for an insatiable appetite that the new Democrat majority has for spending, spending taxpayer dollars and going well beyond the mission statement of SCHIP. And that is what the day is all about. It is a defining moment with the new Democrat majority seeking a way to have single payer-funded health care for all America. And that is the road that we are defining and beginning again today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this completely closed rule that fails to even provide the minority with a motion to recommit, and to the underlying legislation that the minority did not receive until 6:30 last night.

When I came to the floor in the beginning of August to oppose the previous version of this legislation, I explained my opposition to the way that it had been brought to the floor without a single legislative markup. And, unfortunately, again today that fact has not changed. In fact, neither Republican leadership nor Republican members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee had an opportunity to participate in the crafting of the 250-plus pages of legislative language this entire House was provided with just a little bit more than 12 hours ago.

Despite the terrible process surrounding this legislation from start to finish, I would like to once again thank the Democrat leadership for one thing: By cramming this bill through the House for a second time, they are giving every single Member of this body another opportunity to go on record regarding which vision they have for the future of our Nation's health care system that they truly support.

The first vision for our future is to slowly shift away as many Americans as is possible into a one-size-fits-all Washington bureaucrat-run program. And, if nothing else, I congratulate the Democrat leadership for their clarity, because that vision is embodied in H.R. 976.

Rather than taking the opportunity to cover the children who cannot obtain coverage through Medicaid or the private marketplace, this bill uses these children as pawns in their cynical attempt to make millions of Americans completely reliant upon the government for their health care needs.

H.R. 976 also increases government spending and dislocates the private marketplace, leaving taxpayers holding the bag for these increased costs. This bill generally raises the income threshold for eligibility and allows States to qualify anyone receiving these funds, including childless adults and people making over $80,000 a year, despite the fact that this diverts these much needed funds away from helping our Nation's most poorest children.

It would also allow illegal immigrants and aliens to receive these benefits by forcing States to accept nonsecure documents as proof of citizenship for purposes of receiving these funds. I find it both ironic and unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that the party of Hillary Clinton and bureaucrat-run health care would float a proposal in which law- abiding citizens are made to show proof of insurance as a condition of employment, while this legislation would open the door for ineligible and illegal immigrants to receive federally funded benefits, no questions asked.

All of these problems exist on top of a current system which we know that some States already abuse. This bill grandfathers in New York's standard, which provides Federal assistance to those making four times the poverty level, and in New Jersey at 3\1/2\ times, while allowing every other State to expand coverage to three times the current poverty level.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the crowd-out effect created by this big government bill that replaces private insurance with a government program will not provide coverage to more kids. By the CBO estimate, it simply will shift 2.4 million children out of private insurance and into a Federal program that hurts doctors and hospitals by forcing them to deal with government bureaucrats that short-change both patients and providers by undercompensating them for medical services.

If Democrats were serious about ensuring that every American had access to inexpensive and high-quality health care, we would be talking about a different vision today for our health care, one that tackles the system's real underlying problems and revolutionizes our health care system to provide us

with better results. This other, Republican vision for improving health access to health insurance includes allowing families to have access to tax exemptions up to $15,000 a year for health care, not just those who work for large employers.

The Republican vision includes giving Americans the ability to purchase health insurance across State lines, because healthy insurance options should not be limited to the State you live in or your zip code. It also includes having Congress act to ensure that those who can't get insurance in the marketplace have access to coverage through high-risk pools and low-income tax credits.

Mr. Speaker, I am not here to oppose the idea of SCHIP. It was a Republican-controlled Congress that created SCHIP, and I support its original, true mission. But H.R. 976 is a camouflaged attempt at slowly siphoning Americans from insurance plans into a Washington, D.C., bureaucrat-run system.

Mr. Speaker, today we fail to address one of the most serious issues facing our Nation: how to make our health insurance system more affordable and accessible for all Americans. And by focusing on the wrong vision for our future, this bill does nothing to address either problem. It ignores the fact that our Nation has produced the greatest health care advantages in the world, many of which have come as a result of our competitive insurance market.

The American survival rate for leukemia is 50 percent; the European rate is just about 35 percent. For prostate cancer, the American survival rate is 81 percent; in France, it is 62 percent; in England, it is 44 percent.

Rather than trying to emulate Europe and its outdated socialized approach, we should be working on a vision to give every single American an opportunity to take part in our competitive insurance market. I encourage my colleagues to oppose this rule and the underlying legislation to drag America into a one-size-fits-all European model.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to the gentleman from San Dimas, California, the ranking member on the Rules Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) 6 minutes.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ennis, Texas, the ranking member on Energy and Commerce (Mr. Barton).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, a father and a patriot (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to oppose the previous question so that I may amend the rule to allow for consideration of H. Res. 479, a resolution that I call the ``Earmark Accountability Rule.'' It seems like we need a lot more accountability. We had to learn today that through a loophole that evidently we don't have to have all earmarks to be accounted for in the bills that come to this floor of the House of Representatives despite what we were told just a few months ago.

Last night in the ``Graveyard of Good Ideas,'' which is the Rules Committee, I made a motion that would have the Democrats enforce their own earmark proposal by allowing points of order regarding earmarks to be raised on this legislation. As expected, the vote failed along party lines with every Democrat member present voting to waive their own earmark rules for this bill. I am greatly disappointed in that outcome. So today I am giving the entire House, not just the nine Democrat members of the Rules Committee, whose word we are expected to take that this legislation contains no earmarks, an opportunity to correct that mistake.

This rules change would simply allow the House to debate openly and honestly about the validity and accuracy of earmarks contained in all bills, not just appropriations bills. If we defeat the previous question, we can address that problem today and restore this Congress' nonexistent credibility when it comes to the enforcement of its own rules.

I ask unanimous consent to have the text of this amendment and extraneous material appear in the Record just before the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, today, once again, we have a rule that is on the floor of the House of Representatives that is neither open nor I think passes the standard of accountability to the American people nor fairness that they spoke about. Last night, the Rules Committee and minority received this bill just 1 hour and 15 minutes before the Rules Committee was to meet. It involved no feedback from Republican Members, especially those who have jurisdiction over this from the Energy and Commerce Committee.

I am disappointed. I am disappointed that, once again, we have to come to the floor of the House of Representatives after asking a straightforward question last night to the chairman of the Rules Committee, ``Are there any earmarks in this legislation? We think we found three,'' only to come to the floor today and find out, oops, no, we got a loophole, had to find a loophole.

This is crass. It is really politics over policy. I know many people want the United States House of Representatives to be higher in the polls. We are at 11 percent right now. People scratch their head and wonder why. Well, with the way that this House is running, not living up to their word, even the word in committee among colleagues who have been with each other for 9 years that I have been on the Rules Committee where a person looked right at me and said, ``There is nothing in that bill,'' I think we can do better.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

The answer is no. I was allowed to testify at the Rules Committee last evening. That's the only formal opportunity I was ever given in the last 9 months on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to speak extemporaneously since my prepared remarks are in the Record. I remind the body that the Democratic majority took over the House and the Senate in January of this year. They set the schedule. They set the agenda. They decide what hearings are held. They decide what bills are marked up. They decide which issues come to the floor of both bodies. Not the Republicans.

It is insulting to sit here and be told that somehow when the same party, of which I am not a member, controls the agenda in both legislative bodies of this great Congress that somehow the Republicans are responsible for this late effort to reauthorize SCHIP.

I told the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee the day after the election last November, Mr. Dingell of Michigan, that I was looking forward to working with him on SCHIP reauthorization, and while I don't know it as a fact, I am fairly certain that Mr. McCrery had a similar conversation with the distinguished chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel of New York.

Now, how much bipartisan cooperation have we had in the House of Representatives? The answer is almost none. It is my understanding that Mr. Rangel and Mr. McCrery did talk some in their committee, but in the Energy and Commerce Committee we held a number of generic hearings. We never held a hearing specifically on SCHIP. We never held a legislative markup in subcommittee. We never held a legislative hearing or markup in full committee. We got a 565-page bill the night before the scheduled markup, and it was take it or leave it. Well, we left it. And that bill passed the House, but barely.

What has happened since that bill passed? There have been discussions in the Senate between the Republicans and the Democrats apparently, and the House Democratic leadership have participated. But the House Republicans have not been allowed to participate. So what is the result of that? The result of that is a 300-page bill that the House Republicans saw at about 6:14 last evening and a Rules Committee in which it was voted to not give a Republican substitute, not give a Republican amendment, not even give a Republican motion to recommit.

So we are going to have twice now a major bill in which there is bipartisan support for is going to come to the House of Representatives with no Republican input, not even a motion to recommit.

Now, I don't know how many times the Republicans did that to the Democrats in the last several Congresses when we were in the majority, but I bet I could count them on the fingers of one hand, and I might be able to count them on the fingers of one finger.

Don't you think the American people deserve at least a substitute or a motion to recommit? Now, we are going to be given a chance later this evening to have 1 hour of debate, 1 hour of debate, and then an up-or- down vote, and we are going to get enough votes to sustain the President's veto, and maybe next week Mr. Dingell and Mr. Rangel and Ms. Pelosi will contact Mr. Boehner, Mr. Barton, and Mr. McCrery, and we may yet get this bipartisan agreement. We may get it next week, and I hope we do. But I don't want the American people to be under any illusion. The bill that's coming before the floor tonight is a backroom deal that the most that can be said for it is that it does have money in it for the children of America, which we support. And there are lots of reforms that we probably support, too, if we are ever given the chance to have that discussion.

I would hope we would vote ``no'' on this rule, take it back to the Rules Committee, at least make a substitute or a motion to recommit in order, and put back in the rule in terms of earmarks. There are at least two earmarks that we know in the bill that nobody has talked about.

One of the earmarks is from the great State of Michigan, $1.2 billion over 10 years. It's just a gift of $1.2 billion for their FMAP program. And if that's not an earmark, I don't know what is. And under the Democratic leadership's own rule in this Congress, that should have at least been disclosed. And last night at the Rules Committee, they said there were no earmarks in the bill. And I believe when Ms. Slaughter, the distinguished chairman, said that, she believed it. I don't think she knew it was in the bill. But it is. That at least ought to be corrected.

Vote ``no'' on the rule and send it back to the committee.

Mr. Speaker, this rule is an apt reflection of the underlying SCRIP legislation. Like the bill, it tramples democracy in a feckless commitment to bad politics over good policy. The House Democratic leadership wants to embarrass and weaken the President, and that goal is more important to them than extending health care to needy children.

So we're being instructed--not even asked--to swallow a multi- billion-dollar bill without having a legislative hearing at any level, without having a subcommittee markup and without having a conference. We're each supposed to analyze and comprehend a 299-page enigma that was unveiled last night. There'll be no amendments, of course, and no motion to recommit. This is getting to be a bad habit, isn't it?

Each of us represents several hundred thousand people, and most of them come from families that work hard and pay taxes. They do their part, and we should, too. But we can't do much more than voting object when we are not even able to know what's in the bills we're voting on.

Most of what we know about this SCHIP bill is what we hear in the halls and see in the newspapers. For some, that's enough because the harder we listen and the more we look, the more we discover that is troubling. What on earth is the $1.2 billion earmark for Michigan all about, anyway? And how many more like it are tucked away in this bill?

We cannot actually know most of what's in this bill, but we can suspect much. We can certainly suspect the State Children's Health Insurance Program grew from a fraction of the House SCHIP bill to become an entire pretend conference report. All we know for sure is that we're being asked to pass another major

piece of legislation based on blind faith and guesswork.

I wonder why we can't do now what we're surely going to do later-- pass a simple extension of the SCRIP program and then have the honest public debate about policy changes that should have occurred over the last 10 months. Mr. Deal and I propose to extend the authorization of SCRIP for an additional 18 months, and more than a hundred of our colleagues have agreed. There are no gimmicks, no budget trickery, no politics and no changes.

But the majority will want their pound of the President's flesh first. Everybody gets that, and maybe it won't work so well as they hope because, after all, everybody gets it. This rule and this legislation aren't about children or health. They are about a cynical exercise of raw power for the sake of a fleeting political advantage.

I wish the Democrats wouldn't do it this way, but I'm under no illusion that wishin' or hopin' will change the speaker's mind. I look forward to the President's inevitable veto because it will give us a chance to have a real discussion and write a transparent bill instead of foisting this mystery package on the taxpayers and the needy children of America.

We can work together and do this right, and I believe that eventually, we will. The best first step would be to reject this pathetic rule and start working on real legislation now instead of later.

Let me thank the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts and the chairman of the full Committee on Ways and Means and the chairman of Energy and Commerce. This is correctly stated by the chairman of the Ways and Means: this is not the House bill.

I love our children. I have great concerns about this legislation, but I have more concerns about my Republican friends who are opposing this legislation, and I am outraged about the President's threat of a veto. Even this bill does not cover the 6 million children that we need to cover, it only covers 2.4 million. My friends, this is not Medicaid; this is SCHIP. This is for working men and women whose children don't have health insurance; 2.8 million are insured. We wanted 5 million, 6 million; but, no, we only have 2.8 million, 3.2 million left out.

And then, of course, there was the possibility of insuring some adults, the most vulnerable sick adults, under SCHIP with remaining monies. This bill does not do that. And then, of course, we look at individuals who are of legal immigrant status and we tell them they cannot be covered--these immigrants are here legally.

We also are asking people to come to the emergency room with a sick child with citizenship documentation. And let me say, this is for all of us. And so you have a sick child and you're looking for citizenship documentation. On the other hand, I am grateful that we have parity with dental and mental care for SCHIP children. And pregnant women are covered. And then we have the ability to enroll the children quickly, because one of the problems of SCHIP is that children are not enrolled. But the real crisis is no answer coming from the White House children's health care. The only thing coming from the White House is a veto pen.

So not only will 6 million children be left out in the cold, but the small number, 2.8 million, that was squeaking through the door will be thrown under the bus because we won't be able to cover them because a veto pen is waiting for us. We can do better. America is better than this.

I love our children. We need to do this in the right way. We certainly don't need a veto pen by the President of the United States. We should love our children and respond to their health needs.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my disappointment in the version of the State Children's Health Insurance Program Act of 2007 which has been brought before this body today. This bill, which has been largely driven by the Republicans in the Senate, falls far short of the mark to mend the broken pieces of our healthcare system and provide healthcare coverage for some of our most vulnerable populations in this country. Instead of covering an additional 6 million uninsured children, this bill increases coverage for 3 million, leaving 3 million children uninsured. This bill also fails to provide vision coverage and provides very little mental coverage for our children. Pregnant women may also suffer under this bill because this bill, unlike the previous House version, does not guarantee additional coverage for pregnant women. This bill also denies coverage to parents, college-aged adults, and legal immigrants who currently have coverage in some states.

This is extremely important because reauthorization of SCHIP is crucial to closing the racial and ethnic health disparities in this country. Narrowing health care coverage of our children, as this newly agreed upon version does, clearly falls far short of the goal that we had hoped for in our efforts to decrease health disparities. It is crucial that this Congress continue to bring awareness to the many health concerns facing minority communities and to acknowledge that we need to find solutions to address these concerns. My colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus and I understand the very difficult challenges facing us in the form of huge health disparities among our community and other minority communities. We will continue to seek solutions to those challenges.

Reauthorization of the SCHIP bill is crucial to realizing those solutions. However, we must not compromise away the health of millions of children who will under this new SCHIP version go without healthcare coverage. It is imperative for us to improve the prospects for living long and healthy lives and fostering an ethic of wellness in African- American and other minority communities.

Looking at the statistics, we know that the lack of healthcare contributes greatly to the racial and ethnic health disparities in this country, so we must provide our children with the health insurance coverage to remain healthy. SCHIP, established in 1997 to serve as the healthcare safety net for low-income uninsured children, has decreased the number of uninsured low-income children in the United States by more than one-third. The reduction in the number of uninsured children is even more striking for minority children.

In 2006, SCHIP provided insurance to 6.7 million children. Of these, 6.2 million were in families whose income was less than $33,200 a year for a family of three. SCHIP works in conjunction with the Medicaid safety net that serves the lowest income children and ones with disabilities. Together, these programs provide necessary preventative, primary and acute healthcare services to more than 30 million children. Eighty-six percent of these children are in working families that are unable to obtain or afford private health insurance. Meanwhile, healthcare through SCHIP is cost effective: it costs a mere $3.34 a day or $100 a month to cover a child under SCHIP, according to the Congressional Budget Office. There are significant benefits of the State Children's Health Insurance Program when looking at specific populations served by this program.

Minority Children: SCHIP has had a dramatic effect in reducing the number of uninsured minority children and providing them access to care; Between 1996 and 2005, the percentage of low-income African American and Hispanic children without insurance decreased substantially; In 1998, roughly 30 percent of Latino children, 20 percent of African American children, and 18 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islander children were uninsured. After enactment, those numbers had dropped by 2004 to about 12 percent, and 8 percent, respectively; Half of all African American and Hispanic children are already covered by SCHIP or Medicaid; More than 80 percent of uninsured African American children and 70 percent of uninsured Hispanic children are eligible but not enrolled in Medicaid and SCHIP, so reauthorizing and increasing support for SCHIP will be crucial to insuring this population.

Prior to enrolling in SCHIP, African American and Hispanic children were much less likely than non-Hispanic White children to have a usual source of care. After they enrolled in SCHIP, these racial and ethnic disparities largely disappeared. In addition, SCHIP eliminated racial and ethnic disparities in unmet medical needs for African American and Hispanic children, putting them on par with White children. SCHIP is also important to children living in urban areas of the country. In urban areas: One in four children has health care coverage through SCHIP. More than half of all children whose family income is $32,180 received health care coverage through SCHIP.

Children in Urban Areas: SCHIP is also important to children living in urban areas of the country. In urban areas: One in four children has health care coverage through SCHIP. More than half of all children whose family income is $32,180 received healthcare coverage through

Mr. Speaker, I thank my very good friend from Dallas for yielding this time, and I thank him for his great, very thoughtful statement on this issue.

I have got to say, as I did last night when we met in the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, that it really saddens me that we are here at this point. It was very proudly in a Republican Congress with a Democratic President that we came together in a bipartisan way to ensure that the very, very underprivileged in this country, children, would have access to health insurance. It is something that existed for 10 years, and we know that there are still children who are in need and we want to do everything that we possibly can to ensure that children have an opportunity to have access to quality health care. Mr. Speaker, this ain't it. This is not the answer.

I listened to my friend from Worcester begin this very thoughtful statement about bipartisanship. He mentioned two House Republicans and two Senate Republicans who made this a wonderful bipartisan measure. But I would like to yield to my friend and engage in a colloquy with him, if I might.

I see here on the floor the very distinguished ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the committee that has had jurisdiction over this issue. And I would like to inquire of my friend if he knows if the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) was ever invited, as he hails this great spirit of bipartisanship, to any meeting that was held by the majority in attempts to negotiate this measure. I am happy to yield to my friend from Worcester.

Would the gentleman yield me 1 minute so that I could ask the question again?

Would the gentleman yield me 30 seconds so that I can ask the question? We've got a limited amount of time here and a lot of speakers.

So the gentleman chooses not to answer my question then.

I'd be happy to yield to my very good friend from New York.

Mr. Speaker, let me reclaim my time. I was happy to yield to my friend to answer my question. It was a yes or no question.

Mr. Speaker, the distinguished Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means is a great friend of mine. I'm always happy to yield to him. I was trying to yield to the gentleman from Worcester who is managing this rule----

I would simply inquire as to whether or not the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the former chairman of the committee, was invited to participate in this much heralded bipartisan agreement to which Mr. McGovern has referred. And I guess the answer that I'm getting with all of this convoluted stuff is no. Well, you know what? Maybe I should yield to the distinguished former chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce to inquire of him. Mr. Rangel and Mr. McGovern seem to be unable to answer the question as to whether or not the distinguished former chairman, the ranking member, was invited to participate in this great bipartisan package that we've got. I'm happy to yield to my friend.

I thank my friend for enlightening us on that, Mr. Speaker, and I will simply say that that demonstrates that, as we've heard about this great quest for bipartisanship in dealing with an issue which should have been completely bipartisan, and was when the Republicans were in the majority, I will say. The American people were represented here in a bipartisan way in fashioning a State Children's Health Insurance Program, SCHIP, that had, first, a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, sign it, and it was a Republican work product.

It saddens me that today we now have a Democratic Congress and a Republican President, and this Republican President is going to veto the measure. Why? Because it dramatically expands the welfare state, undermines the ability for children who are truly in need to get it, and as was pointed out in an Energy and Commerce item, it's a reverse Robin Hood. It takes from the poor with a tax increase, the most regressive tax of all, as was stated by the Congressional Budget Office, and it gives to people who shouldn't even be able to qualify for this program.

And that is, I believe, just plain wrong. It is a mischaracterization of what we should see in a SCHIP program. Everybody wants to make this happen. Governors across the country wanted to make it happen. Of course, they want to have access to these resources. And Democrats and Republicans want to make it happen. But this is not the right bill. If Mr. Barton had been able to participate, I'm convinced that we would have, Mr. Speaker, had a very decent bill on this.

Now, let me just say that the other thing that really troubles me is what we held our last vote on just a few minutes ago. Let me just very quickly, Mr. Speaker, say that we tried very, very hard at the beginning of this Congress to take the majority at their word when they said there was going to be a great new era of transparency and disclosure and accountability.

Well, 10 days ago, Mr. Speaker, we marked the first anniversary of our passing real earmark reform in this institution. What did it say? It said there would be transparency, accountability and disclosure on items, not just appropriations bills, but on authorizing bills and on tax bills. And, unfortunately, in this so-called new era of transparency and disclosure in this new Congress, we completely subvert the notion of transparency and disclosure on earmarks, as is evidenced in this bill.

When we in the Rules Committee last night saw the majority, and they all voted, we had a recorded vote on this. They chose to waive the provision that would have, in fact, had an opportunity for disclosure and accountability; and they voted, again, against it right here on the House floor. That's why, as was said by Mr. Rogers earlier, we have a discharge petition so that we can do what we did last September 14, a year ago, and that is have real earmark reform.

Vote ``no'' on this rule and ``no'' on the underlying legislation.