Supporting the goals and ideals of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month and expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress should raise awareness of domestic violence in the United States and its devastating effects on families and communities.

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.

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.

Mr. Speaker, for those of us who have served in this body for some period of time, all of us know that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) has been as focused on health care for all Americans as anybody who's served in this body, with the sole exception, perhaps, of his father. For over half a century, the Dingells have focused on making sure that Americans in the richest land on the face of the Earth had access to health care.

I want to congratulate my friend, Mr. Dingell, and I want to congratulate his partner, Charlie Rangel, one of the senior Members of this House, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who has worked collaboratively with Jim McCrery, and I want to congratulate Jim McCrery; I'll congratulate him again while he's listening; who has worked, I think, positively with the chairman, and I thank him for that.

I rise in support of this legislation. Today the Members of this body must answer this fundamental question: Will you stand with millions of American children who, through no fault of their own, but they live in families of limited means, have no health insurance? Or will you stand with the few, including at least now President Bush, although I hope he changes his mind, who are ideologically opposed to this legislation, and thus being willing to leave millions of American children stranded without the health insurance coverage they need and that they deserve?

Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is this: we must not sacrifice the health of our children on the altar of a conservative ideology. We must pass this bill.

The fact is, President Bush himself stated on the campaign trail in 2004, in fact, it was at the Republican Convention, and I would hope all my Republican colleagues would listen to the President's quote, if you haven't already seen it and read it. He said this as he addressed the American people asking them for their vote for a second term, which they gave him. He said this: ``In a new term, we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions of children who are eligible but not signed up for government health insurance programs.''

President Bush said that as he appealed to the American public for their support for a second term, that he would aggressively pursue a program of adding millions of children, eligible but not included, in the health insurance program.

``We will not allow a lack of attention or information to stand between these children and the health care they need.'' That is what President Bush said to the American public from the convention floor in 2004. We, tonight, are going to give him the opportunity to fulfill that promise to the American public.

Unfortunately, the President is threatening to renege on his campaign promise and to veto this legislation. Let's be clear: this fiscally responsible legislation will ensure that some 10 million children will receive health insurance coverage. That's approximately 4 million more than are covered under the Children's Health Insurance Program today. And so what we consider today is not young Master Snyder, who was on this floor, or Gemma Frost, with whom we met earlier today. Gemma Frost will be covered. Luckily, Master Snyder's father is covered, as all of us are, under a Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan to which our employer contributes. Gemma Frost was not so lucky.

The truth is, those 4 million additional children are eligible under existing guidelines, not new guidelines that we've created. They are the children that were eligible that President Bush talked about in 2004 that he wanted to vigorously assume inclusion in the program. Millions, he referred to.

This legislation does not change eligibility guidelines. It simply strengthens CHIP's financing, increases coverage for low-income children, and improves the quality of care they will receive.

In contrast, under the President's proposal, and I hope my friends would put this fact in juxtaposition to the President's representation in 2004 on the floor of the national convention that you held as your party, his proposal would decrease, by 800,000 children, the numbers that would be covered under CHIP in the future. Now, that's included in the 4 million, so actually it's a net 4 million difference between the proposals.

Ladies and gentlemen, we ought not to retreat from our children's health. We ought not to retreat from working families concerned about the inclusion of their children.

And I suggest to my friends concerned about cost, we ought not to give the answer, they can go to the emergency room. Why not? Because all of us know that is the most expensive intervention in the health care system in America. And so not only do we put our children at risk, but we compound our costs.

It's no wonder, Mr. Speaker, that this legislation has received strong support from Members of both sides of the aisle, as well as a wide range of health care providers, including private insurers, doctors and hospitals.

For example, Senator Hatch has already been quoted, but it bears repeating. He said: ``We're talking about kids who basically don't have coverage. I think the President had some pretty bad advice on this.''

Don't take that bad advice. Let us join hands; let us be together on this issue. You voted on a prescription drug program far more expensive than this one, and unpaid for.

Senator Grassley stated: ``The President's understanding of our bill is wrong.''

That's the former chairman of the Finance Committee, Republican, senior Member of the United States Senate. He says, ``The President's wrong.'' He urges him, he says, ``I urge him to reconsider his veto message.''

Every one of us, as we vote tonight, can send a strong message that will perhaps help him to reconsider that position.

Now, let me say, those who complain that this bill will induce people with private insurance to drop their coverage and enroll in the CHIP program are simply grasping at straws. Why do I say that? The fact is, even America's health insurance lobbying group supports this bill.

Finally, let me mention two other points. First, I am very pleased that this legislation includes a comprehensive dental benefit that will give low-income children the dental care they need and will provide States with flexibility in how they provide such care.

Why do I bring that up?

Dental care is important. A 12-year-old child who lived approximately 8 miles from this Chamber, Deamonte Driver was his name, he was 12 years of age. He had three siblings. He got a toothache. His mother did not have coverage and tried to get coverage, tried to get dental care, and she could not get dental care, and that toothache became an infection in the brain, and Deamonte Driver died just months ago, just 9 or 10 miles from where we stand. That is one of the reasons, one of the

four million reasons that I stand here to say that we need to pass this legislation.

Secondly, I'm very disappointed that the Senate Republicans insisted that we remove the House-passed provision on Medicare, as well as our provision that would have allowed legal immigrants who pay taxes to be eligible.

Why is that of concern?

Because my granddaughter, 5 years of age, who just started kindergarten, she may sit next to one of those children in her kindergarten class, and that child who is legally in the United States may get sick. But if that child cannot access health care and sits next to my granddaughter, my granddaughter is at risk.

We want everybody in this country to be healthy so that the rest of us can be assured that we operate in a healthy environment. That is why we want that provision.

Ladies and gentlemen of this House, Speaker Pelosi was right: I don't believe there's a person in this House that doesn't care about their own children, about their neighbor's children, and about the children of our country. All of us care. We need to come together, however, and see how that care can be transformed into meaningful, tangible help.

Mr. Speaker, we have a rare and wonderful opportunity tonight to do the right thing, to put aside partisanship, to elevate the practical, responsible, and moral solution above the ideological.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, let's seize this opportunity. Let's do the right thing. Let's stand with America's children. Let us pass this historic legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

My friends, this is almost an historic occasion because, like the President of the United States said, it is our intention to extend health care to cover 10 million kids.

I don't care how you cut it. You can call it socialized medicine. You can say it's outside of the budget. But when you go home, the question basically is going to be were you with the kids or were you not? It is not just the human and right thing to do, but from a fiscal point of view, how many billions of dollars do we save by providing preventative care to these youngsters? And certainly from a tax writer's point of view, how many of these kids are going to grow to be productive workers so that they can pay taxes and make a contribution to this great Republic?

I don't know how you're going to explain how the kids can go to emergency wards if they get ill, as the President of the United States has indicated; but I know one thing, those of us who have kids and grandkids want the very best for them, and we do have this occasion now.

Now, there are a lot of complaints from the other side that they did not participate in the writing of this bill. Having been in the minority for so long, let me say that every one of you on the Republican side that did not participate, that complained, you have good cause. You were not involved. And I might heartily add, neither were Members on the Democratic side involved.

If you really want to find out who called the shots on this bill, which is not the House bill, it's those people on the other side of the Capitol that believe that everything that has to pass the Senate, that you need 60 votes for. And that's the long and the short of it. So, you may call it the Democratic majority, as I once did, but they're being held hostage by the Republican minority.

And so I participated in terms of seeing what they wanted to do. And believe me, what they said to the House of Representatives, Republicans and Democrats alike, take it or leave it. And so if you want to join with me in looking for someone to criticize, after the debate we can meet in the lobby and talk about it.

But you had an opportunity to vote for a better bill; it was here. And for those who are concerned that legal immigrants can't get services, I hope you voted for the House bill because it was in there. But if you really want to complain about it being un-American, walk with me to the other side, and we'll find the culprits who did it, and they're not Democrats.

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

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

I have a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Does it violate any of the House rules if I refer to the bill before this House as the ``Republican-controlled Senate'' bill?

Well, does it violate any of the House rules if I refer to this bill as a bill that is a Senate bill controlled by the Republicans on the other side of the House? I want to make it clear it's not a House bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume because I want to share a lot of complaints about what those Republicans did to a good, decent House bill. So if you want to join with me with your criticism, don't criticize anyone here. It is not my fault that your leaders were excluded from the so-called ``conference.'' We had no conference.

I know how it feels to have been in the minority, having been there for a decade. So I share with you why you were left out. But had I been in charge, and not the Senate, I would have wanted you there, your judgment. Even if it was just to read the bill over and over and over, at least you would have been participating.

I yield to the chairman of the Health Subcommittee. No one is in a better position to let you know that this is not the House bill. As hard as he worked to reform Medicare, to make certain that we preserved it, to reform that bill, to get $5 billion for the people in the rural areas, to help the aged poor, and really to help the doctors that work hard every day and deserve a decent reimbursement, that, my friends, was in the House bill. But our friends on the other side, the Republicans said, ``No, take it or leave it.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman that worked hard for the House bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark).

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

Mr. Speaker, I am going to act as if I didn't hear that gentleman call this bill a fraud four times. I was in that back room with Senator Grassley, Senator Reid and our dear friend Orrin Hatch. It's their bill. So you call it what you want. But please don't call it a fraud, because it is a Senate bill. And they are very sensitive over there. So I just want to make that clear.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to give 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood). I cannot think of a Member of this House that has worked harder in trying to bring civility, no matter what the issue was. I heard he wasn't going to run for reelection. I just want him to know publicly that both sides of the aisle will miss him.

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

Let me tell you what it means, distinguished ranking member. Distinguished ranking member, what it means is that the deal that we cut, if we change anything over here, the Republicans on the other side are going to drop everything. So we are trying to cooperate with this Republican Senate bill. So even if the distinguished gentlemen here would want to agree, we can't do it. We are held hostage by the other side.

Let us put down our arguments and march over there and correct this thing. But I agree with you, that language should have been corrected with both Houses, but the Republicans objected to any changes or any additions.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), a member of the Ways and Means Committee who is a leader in the Democratic Party, a leader in our Congress, and a leader in our country. We are proud to have him on this bill.

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

I can discuss it in some detail.

If we can get them to open up this, we can do business.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz) who is an outstanding member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I think my time along with Mr. McCrery's is short. If you can give us the amount of time, I think I am going to pass right now.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to Mr. Jason Altmire, a distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. Speaker, it's my pleasure to yield 1 minute to Dr. Steve Kagen, who would share his views with us.

Mr. Speaker, I have two speakers so I think I will reserve my time at this time until we can get a little equality in the time. I think I only have 2\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to an outstanding member of the Ways and Means Committee from the sovereign State of New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

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

Mr. Speaker, when Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi shattered the glass ceiling and made history as the first woman to become Speaker in the history of the United States Congress, the one picture that remained to commemorate this great event was the children that were there when she was sworn in. It wasn't a symbol of the war or the deficit or the Republicans or Democrats; it was this Congress sharing with the rest of the country our deep commitment to the children of our country. And that is our investment.

Whether you are liberal, conservative, Republican, or Democrat, no one can challenge that our most precious human beings are those who cannot protect themselves. We have this opportunity to join with the Speaker as she closes this argument to set aside the partisanship and to be able to say, no matter what our differences, it was the children, it was the children that prevailed, and I voted with them.

I yield the balance of my time to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.