Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 243, S. Res. 253.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record, without further intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 310 submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 311, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. Monday, September 10; that on Monday, following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then proceed to executive session, as provided under a previous order.

Mr. President, if there is no further business today, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, the amendment I will be calling up later this morning does not change current law. It simply reminds the Veterans' Administration to abide by current law. All Federal agencies are bound by certain rules when they outsource jobs. While the Department of Defense has its own set of rules, every other Federal agency, including the Veterans' Administration, is required to take the same straightforward steps to ensure that when outsourcing occurs, which sometimes it needs to, it actually improves upon the status quo, not outsourcing for the sake of outsourcing or to feed private contractors but outsourcing to serve taxpayers and, in the case of the VA, veterans better. If any Federal agency should be required to show a good reason before displacing Government workers, it should be the Veterans' Administration. That is because so many VA employees are actually veterans themselves. Arbitrarily firing veterans is not only wrong, it is shortsighted. The obstacles to employment are steep enough for veterans in too many cases without throwing unjustifiable outsourcing into the mix.

Even if we put that aside, taxpayers are not well served when Government contracts are handed out without regard to the costs or benefits that result. That is one of the many lessons we should have learned from Katrina. It is a lesson we are learning over and over from Iraq. These lessons don't seem to be sinking in with the administration. The VA is firing many of its blue-collar workers and replacing them with private contractors without going through the competition process that Congress has called for again and again. It is bad enough that the VA is moving forward without actually figuring out what is in the best interest of taxpayers. Sometimes outsourcing jobs makes sense. More often than not, as we have found, it doesn't. But that question should be asked before any outsourcing is done in every single case.

Making matters worse, four-fifths of the blue-color jobs targeted for outsourcing were held by veterans. So the Veterans' Administration is outsourcing Government jobs held by veterans to go to private contractors without proving that it is actually saving money. This is more than a paycheck or a path to independence. Sidestepping the rules to eliminate their jobs is bad business and bad policy.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. President, I call up amendment 2673, and I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Webb as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, Congress again and again has called on Federal agencies to ensure that before work is contracted out we first see if Federal employees can perform their jobs as well as their private-sector counterparts. That is only fair to taxpayers as well as to employees. The VA is trying to contract out the work of its blue- collar employees, some four-fifths of whom are veterans themselves, without bothering to see if they can perform as well as their private competition.

This amendment, cosponsored with Senator Webb, simply reiterates the language we have adopted before that there must be a public-private competition before work is contracted out. I hope we can adopt the amendment overwhelmingly to send a message to the VA that this isn't a Democratic-Republican issue, this is simply good government. It is the right thing for American taxpayers and the right thing for veterans-- those being given care and those workers who are veterans who support that mission.

I yield back my remaining time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, yesterday Americans of all ages, from all segments of society, from hundreds of occupations and professions, celebrated something uniquely American: Labor Day.

Our workers, tens of millions of hourly wage earners and hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, farmers and managers, tradesmen and saleswomen, our workers have built a middle class larger, broader, and more prosperous than any in world history.

They all have one thing in common: They are increasedly more productive, creating greater wealth and larger profits than ever for their employers. Yesterday, the Columbus Dispatch reported that according to the International Labor Organization, American workers are the most productive in the world.

The average U.S. worker produces more than $63,885 of wealth each year. But increasingly, American workers have not shared in the wealth they have created, in wages, in health benefits, in a meaningful pension, that highly productive workers in our country used to enjoy.

Ohio workers are fighting back to build a decent standard of living to provide opportunities for our children and to construct a more prosperous and egalitarian society.

But our Nation and my State have struggled; struggled in part because of the Federal Government's wrongheaded trade policy and tax policies, which all too often encourage investors to move jobs overseas, and in part because of a drifting State Government in Columbus which fell short in educating our young people and did little to erect a manufacturing policy to prepare for our future.

In the spirit of Labor Day, let me share the stories of a handful of hard-working often heroic Ohio workers who are making a difference. Dee Dee Tillman and Carlos Sanchez participated in the negotiations representing 1,200 janitors in Cincinnati, 1,200 men and women who are working hard, raising their children, contributing to their community, and earning not much more than the minimum wage.

Joined by their colleagues, they and their union reached an agreement with Cincinnati office building owners. Over the next 4 years, 1,200 janitors in Cincinnati will get a $2.95-an-hour raise, health benefits and vacation pay for the first time and a small pension.

At the other end of the State, in Mentor, Roger Sustar speaks out every day for American manufacturing. He recognizes businesses similar to his, small manufacturing companies, are vital to the economic security and the national security for our country. On most Saturdays, he volunteers his time to train students in the basics of manufacturing.

In northwest Ohio, in the flatlands of Henry County, Mark Schwiebert is a highly productive farmer in an increasingly competitive environment. He is proud of his successful and tidy farm, to be sure, but he also takes seriously his role as a citizen. He is an advocate for family farmers and for fair trade, understanding the prosperity of our State depends on a vibrant rural Ohio, where young people want to stay and work in their community.

Sue Klein, another hero who cares so much about our State, works at a large daily newspaper. She too makes her employer a more profitable enterprise. She works hard. She gets rave reviews from her coworkers, is uncommonly devoted to her aging parents, and gives back to her community in a dozen ways.

On Labor Day, we salute American labor and Ohio labor. We celebrate our State's heroes: Dee Dee, Carlos, Mark, Roger, and Sue. We thank them and so many others.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa for his leadership on drug abuse issues that he has shown for so long in this institution. We are all appreciative, in Ohio and Iowa and Oklahoma and everywhere else in this country.

We have heard a litany of stories in the last year or so about the steady stream of dangerous imports, especially from China. We have seen contaminated seafood, we have seen defective tires from China, we have seen dangerous ingredients in toothpaste and vitamins and pet food. In the last 24 hours, we have seen a continued problem with a huge number of toys being recalled that were painted with lead-based paint. Lead paint has been abandoned for almost three decades in this country. We know that lead in paint is a potentially terrible thing for children in terms of the development of their brain, especially for young children.

In USA Today this week is an article that sums up what we have allowed to happen, and why this is no surprise, as we have built this trade relationship with China. I would like to read a couple of paragraphs. We went from barely a $10 billion trade deficit with China in 1992, the year I ran for the House of Representatives, which has grown by a factor of almost 25, to $250 billion today. At the same time we were buying so much from China, we understood China is a country with no real rules, no environmental laws that are enforced well, few food safety, toy safety, worker safety rules and regulations. As a result, it should come as no shock to Americans that so many of these products imported from China are defective or dangerous. Let me read this:

Nearly all the recent alarms raised about Chinese products

point fingers solely at the Chinese, neglecting entirely how

China's success as an exporter is, in large part, the product

of roughly a trillion dollars of foreign investment and

limitless expertise that floods into the country in order to

escape some standard or other at home.

First, of course, are labor standards. Chinese factory

workers earn roughly 65 cents an hour, about \1/40\ what

their American, Western European and Japanese counterparts

do. Export companies--and the long chain of companies that

supply them--commonly save money by subjecting [Chinese]

workers to cramped dorms, long work weeks and often brutal

shop bosses, which would be utterly illegal in the United

States workplaces.

American business knows what it is doing, as it has offshored its jobs to China and offshored so many American jobs to China, so much of its work to China. Unfortunately, so much of what has happened is due to trade law and tax law. In essence, we are encouraging our businesses to outsource because of the incentives we provided them in the rules that have been written by the global economy, by U.S. trade law, by tax law. We can continue that or we have a choice. We can do something very different. What we offer this week is very different.

Congresswoman Schakowsky in the House, with Congresswoman Sutton from Ohio and several other Members of Congress, Tim Ryan, also from Ohio and in the Senate, Senators Durbin and Obama from Illinois, are offering legislation to set up what we call Patriot Corporations. Those are companies that play by the rules, they hire American workers, do most of their production in the United States, they pay their taxes. As I said, they do most of their production in the United States. They provide pensions and they provide health care for their workers. Those companies that do that should be rewarded. We will designate them ``Patriot Corporations.'' They will get a lower tax rate and they also will have a better opportunity to get Government contracts.

Instead of going the way we have gone; that is, giving all kinds of incentives for American corporations to outsource jobs, giving all kinds of incentives for those companies to move overseas and avoid taxes--instead of allowing that, we, instead, should offer to American companies that play by the rules, those companies, again, that provide decent health care, pensions for their workers, do their manufacturing and work in the United States--we should reward them with the designation of ``Patriot Corporation.'' Those companies that are loyal to their workers, loyal to their communities and loyal to their Nation should be rewarded. We should be loyal to them.

That is the choice we face, continuing this outsourcing tax and trade policy that costs us jobs, and we end up bringing in all kinds of unsafe products--whether they are food products at our breakfast table, whether they are toys that can potentially hurt our children. We have that choice; we either continue this policy or we designate corporations that play by the rules as Patriot Corporations.

As I said, if they are loyal to their workers and loyal to their communities and loyal to our Nation, we as a government should be loyal to them and treat them accordingly.

I yield the floor.

President, today I pay tribute to the life and legacy of Harold Pote. Hal, the founder and president of the Spina Bifida Foundation, SBF, passed away suddenly on June 26, 2007. My staff and I are deeply saddened by this loss, which is felt not only by his friends and family but by many of us on Capitol Hill. My staff and I first had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Mr. Pote nearly 6 years ago when he began a campaign to increase congressional awareness of--and the national attention paid to--spina bifida, the Nation's most common, permanently disabling birth defect.

Hal's nephew Gregory was born with spina bifida almost 22 years ago. Spina bifida occurs in the first month of pregnancy when the spinal column does not close completely. In the United States, spina bifida occurs in approximately 7 out of 10,000 live births and currently there are 70,000 men, women, adolescents, and children living with spina bifida. Hal supported his nephew through more than 20 surgeries and was there to share in many wonderful moments, including the moment in 2004 when Gregory carried the Olympic torch. Hal was dedicated to ensuring that Gregory and others living with spina bifida enjoy a high quality of life. He also maintained a steadfast commitment to helping prevent spina bifida by promoting efforts to educate women of childbearing age about the importance of daily consumption of a multivitamin containing folic acid.

Hal joined with a group of colleagues to form the Spina Bifida Foundation in 1999. In its 8 years of existence, the SBF, under Hal's steadfast leadership, made remarkable progress on behalf of the spina bifida community. Not so long ago people born with spina bifida did not live past their teenage years. Thanks to research and outreach enabled in part by Hal's exceptionally effective foundation, many children with spina bifida are now living to be adults and are enjoying a higher quality of life than previous generations.

Hal's achievements go beyond his philanthropy and advocacy on behalf of people with spina bifida. He was born in Penns Grove, NJ, in 1946 and received his bachelor's degree in economics from Princeton in 1968, and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1972. In 1984, at the age of 37, he was named chairman and CEO of Fidelity Bank. Hal left Fidelity in 1989 and that same year co-founded the PFR, a private real estate group, which was later acquired by Prologis. In 1993, Hal cofounded the Beacon Group, a Manhattan-based investment partnership later acquired by Chase Manhattan. He led Chase's regional banking group and after that bank merged with JP Morgan he became chairman of retail financial services for JP Morgan Chase. After retiring from JP Morgan Chase, Hal returned to Philadelphia in 2006 to serve as CEO of the American Financial Realty Trust.

Hal Pote's sudden death is a tragedy. Yet his life was a triumph. I offer my heartfelt condolences to his family--his wife Linda Johnson, his mother Lucille Bock Pote, his two brothers Frank and Corey Pote, and his nephews.

I ask my colleagues to join me in celebrating the life and honoring the many achievements of this extraordinary man.

Mr. President, I am introducing legislation today that would delay for 18 months the requirement that doctors write Medicaid prescriptions on tamper-resistant paper. I am pleased that my colleague and friend, Mr. Voinovich, has agreed to cosponsor this important bill.

Let me place the bill in context. The Iraq supplemental signed into law 2 months ago requires all Medicaid prescriptions to be written on tamper-resistant paper effective October 1, 2007.

It is important to understand what tamper-resistant prescribing does and does not do.

First, what it does not do.

Tamper-resistant prescribing does not help prevent medication errors, which occur when a provider writes the wrong prescription, a pharmacist dispenses the wrong medicine, or a patient takes the wrong dose of a medicine.

Tamper-resistant prescribing does, however, help prevent fraud.

Tamper-resistant paper is intended to prevent the fraudulent modification of prescriptions, particularly prescriptions for opiates and other narcotics.

It is a worthy goal, and one we should pursue.

But the October 1, 2007, implementation date simply isn't realistic.

More time is needed to inform physicians and pharmacists about these new requirements and make sure that physicians across America have tamper-resistant pads in their offices.

If we don't delay the requirement, come October 1 pharmacists throughout our Nation will face an impossible situation.

The pharmacist can turn the beneficiary away since they are not going to be paid if they seek payment for a Medicaid prescription that is not written on tamper proof paper. Or they can go ahead and fill it and hope they don't get sued.

And what about the Medicaid beneficiary who needs to fill a prescription?

What about the financial integrity of Medicaid itself?

Let us say a Medicaid beneficiary needs insulin.

How much work does she miss and what is the additional cost to Medicaid if, in order to fill her prescription, this beneficiary must: 1. go to her doctor for a prescription; 2. go to her local pharmacy, which is forced to turn her away; 3. go to the emergency room in the hopes she can get a temporary supply; 4. go back to her doctor for a tamper-resistant prescription; and 5. go back to her pharmacy for her medicine?

If you give the health care sector enough time to prepare for the tamper-proof requirement, that requirement will improve the public health and reduce Medicaid costs.

Implemented prematurely, and the equation flips, Medicaid wastes dollars on needless doctor and hospital visits, and Medicaid beneficiaries suffer the consequences of unfilled prescriptions.

Providing more time to ensure smooth implementation of the tamper- resistant prescribing requirement is the smart thing to do and the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do for Medicaid beneficiaries, for community pharmacies, and for U.S. taxpayers.

On behalf of all of these constituencies, we should send this legislation to the President's desk as soon as possible.

Mr. President, I am introducing legislation today that would delay for 18 months the requirement that doctors write Medicaid prescriptions on tamper-resistant paper. I am pleased that my colleague and friend, Mr. Voinovich, has agreed to cosponsor this important bill.

Let me place the bill in context. The Iraq supplemental signed into law 2 months ago requires all Medicaid prescriptions to be written on tamper-resistant paper effective October 1, 2007.

It is important to understand what tamper-resistant prescribing does and does not do.

First, what it does not do.

Tamper-resistant prescribing does not help prevent medication errors, which occur when a provider writes the wrong prescription, a pharmacist dispenses the wrong medicine, or a patient takes the wrong dose of a medicine.

Tamper-resistant prescribing does, however, help prevent fraud.

Tamper-resistant paper is intended to prevent the fraudulent modification of prescriptions, particularly prescriptions for opiates and other narcotics.

It is a worthy goal, and one we should pursue.

But the October 1, 2007, implementation date simply isn't realistic.

More time is needed to inform physicians and pharmacists about these new requirements and make sure that physicians across America have tamper-resistant pads in their offices.

If we don't delay the requirement, come October 1 pharmacists throughout our Nation will face an impossible situation.

The pharmacist can turn the beneficiary away since they are not going to be paid if they seek payment for a Medicaid prescription that is not written on tamper proof paper. Or they can go ahead and fill it and hope they don't get sued.

And what about the Medicaid beneficiary who needs to fill a prescription?

What about the financial integrity of Medicaid itself?

Let us say a Medicaid beneficiary needs insulin.

How much work does she miss and what is the additional cost to Medicaid if, in order to fill her prescription, this beneficiary must: 1. go to her doctor for a prescription; 2. go to her local pharmacy, which is forced to turn her away; 3. go to the emergency room in the hopes she can get a temporary supply; 4. go back to her doctor for a tamper-resistant prescription; and 5. go back to her pharmacy for her medicine?

If you give the health care sector enough time to prepare for the tamper-proof requirement, that requirement will improve the public health and reduce Medicaid costs.

Implemented prematurely, and the equation flips, Medicaid wastes dollars on needless doctor and hospital visits, and Medicaid beneficiaries suffer the consequences of unfilled prescriptions.

Providing more time to ensure smooth implementation of the tamper- resistant prescribing requirement is the smart thing to do and the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do for Medicaid beneficiaries, for community pharmacies, and for U.S. taxpayers.

On behalf of all of these constituencies, we should send this legislation to the President's desk as soon as possible.

Mr. President, I begin by thanking Chairman Baucus for his terrific work on perhaps the most important domestic legislation this year, and that is the Children's Health Insurance Program. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania also, the Presiding Officer tonight, for his terrific work leading our freshman class on this issue. We know how important it is to the people, whether it is Montana, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, or any of the States represented here tonight.

The children's health insurance bill meets the most basic need of American families. Nothing should stand in the way of this bill moving forward. Children too often suffer and some die because they do not have access to health care. In a nation as wealthy as ours, that is not just irresponsible, it is immoral.

Today we have the opportunity to do the right thing for American families, for parents, for children. Without health insurance for their children, parents too often face impossible choices--go to the doctor when their child is sick or pay the grocery bill or the electric bill or the rent. These are the choices that families are forced to make-- cruel choices.

In 1996, when Congress created the Children's Health Insurance Program, with a Democratic President and a Republican Congress, there were nearly 11 million uninsured children in the United States. In Ohio, my State, there were roughly 305,000 uninsured children. Today, thanks in large part to the Children's Health Insurance Program, those numbers have been reduced substantially--fewer than 9 million nationwide and roughly 236,000 in Ohio.

The Children's Health Insurance Program is directly responsible for covering 6.6 million children across the country and more than 200,000 children in Ohio in Athens, in Ashtabula, in Warren and West Lake, in Marion and Maple Heights. That is good, but it is not good enough. Mr. President, 150,000 low-income children, most of whom have working parents, in Ohio, do not have health insurance. This bill does the right thing on mental health, requiring parity between mental and physical health benefits.

I would like to share a story I heard yesterday that should remind us of the importance of this provision. In 1990, Kitty Burgitt's husband died suddenly, leaving her to care for her 5-year-old daughter and 2- year-old son as a single mother in Canton, OH, a city in the northeast part of my State. Her Social Security survivor benefits were considered too much to qualify for Medicaid. Six years later, Congress created the Children's Health Insurance Program. Kitty immediately enrolled her children in that program.

Given the initial strict income eligibility provisions of the program, Kitty was forced to turn down raises and refuse the additional hours at work that she wanted to work to keep her children enrolled, to keep them insured.

When her daughter was in the eighth grade, she started experiencing mental health problems. Then her daughter became suicidal. The Children's Health Insurance Program covered her treatment, which then was extensive. Imagine what it would have been like for Kitty if she had no way to help her daughter. No parent should ever feel that helpless. No parent should ever be forced to watch powerlessly as her child, or his child, suffers.

Thankfully, because of the Children's Health Insurance Program, Kitty's daughter did receive the treatment she needed. Today her daughter is healthy and happy. As Kitty herself wrote recently:

Today my daughter is 22, happily married with a beautiful

daughter of her own--

Kitty's granddaughter--

and has a good job as a restaurant manager.

If we do our job this week and pass this bill, we will hear more success stories such as this one in the future.

Some of my colleagues raise concern over this bill's income eligibility levels. I believe it is important, however, for each State, with its own unique set of circumstances, to have the flexibility to offer coverage to those it deems in need. The State makes that determination.

In my State of Ohio, for instance, Governor Strickland and the State legislature have taken it upon themselves to raise the eligibility limit for the Children's Health Insurance Program to 300 percent of poverty level. That 300 percent is not living in the lap of luxury. It means a parent still cannot afford health insurance in a job where they are 300 percent of poverty without some help from the Children's Health Insurance Program.

This means little boys, such as Marco Rodriguez, will finally have health insurance. Marco lives in Marion, 20 to 30 miles from where I grew up. He is 9\1/2\

years old. His father died last year. His mother works full time. This is Marco's mother. But her job does not offer health insurance. She cannot afford private coverage. Her income is just over 200 percent of poverty, roughly $24,000 a year. She works hard, is raising her child, she is widowed, and she makes $24,000 a year. Of course she cannot afford health insurance on that income. It is not enough to pay for food, rent, and clothing--barely--and private health insurance.

So Marco, like all too many children, has been going without health insurance. What if something happens? One major medical emergency for Marco could mean financial catastrophe for his mother, his family--for both of them.

If we do our job this week, Ohio will be able to cover Marco come January 2008.

Others have voiced concern over the cost of this reauthorization. It was a bipartisan initiative 10 years ago, with a Democratic President and a Republican Congress and an overwhelming number of Democrats, myself included, in the House of Representatives and Senate voting for it. We all agree this program has been a success.

The investment we made in 1996 has proven to be a wise one. And still too many of my friends on the other side of the aisle hesitate. They hesitate about our Nation's children. They say: We like the program, but it is too expensive or, We have other priorities. But this is about priorities. And the questions are pretty simple.

Should Congress provide for billionaire tax breaks or health insurance for our children? Should we provide for billions, literally billions in no-bid contracts in Iraq or health insurance for our children? Should we provide for Medicare privatization and oil company subsidies or health insurance for our children?

It is time for Congress to get its priorities straight. We should pass the Children's Health Insurance Program.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment 2551 be modified with the changes at the desk, notwithstanding the fact that the amendment is not pending.

Mr. President, the Children's Health Insurance Program is a success story. It was created in 1996 during my second term in the House of Representatives under a Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by President Clinton. It was exactly what voters sent people to Washington to do. It was bipartisan, with a Democratic President working with a Republican Congress, with wide support within Congress from large numbers of both Democrats and Republicans.

Since then, the program has reduced the number of uninsured children in working families by one-third; 6.6 million children are covered nationally. More than 218,000 children are covered in my State of Ohio, from Galion to Gallipolis, from Mansfield to Middletown, from Xenia to Zanesville. These children now get care in their doctors' offices but not, as the President suggests, in the emergency rooms. Their care is delivered when it is needed, not when it is too late. They go to their family physician with an ear infection, and they get an antibiotic that may cost $50 or $75 or $100. The child gets sent home with his or her mother or father, and the child is cured instead of the ear ache getting so bad for a child whose parent has no insurance, and the parent waiting and hoping it gets better. The child goes to the emergency room at the cost of several hundred dollars, and the child may have a permanent hearing loss as a result, with what that does to the child's future in school and to the child's future later in getting a job.

These children under the CHIP program have good, reliable health coverage. The Children's Health Insurance Program, in short, works. It works for our Ohio children, our Ohio parents, and for Ohio communities. But it does not work as well as it could.

Today we have the opportunity to make the Children's Health Insurance Program what it should be. Sadly, we all know millions of American children--far too many children in Dayton and Columbus and Toledo and Cleveland and Akron and Canton and Youngstown and Cincinnati--remain without health insurance, even though the law states they are eligible for it.

Eleven years ago, in 1996, Congress made a promise to America's children. Right now, today, this week, in the Senate and in the House, we have the opportunity to live up to that promise. We can pass this bill to provide health insurance to 3.2 million more children, children who have missed out on our promise--not their fault, ours--so far.

This is a bipartisan effort and bill, just like the original was a decade ago. That is because this legislation is about children, not politics. This bill is about helping children.

Let me tell a story about how the Children's Health Insurance Program has helped one family in Ohio. Seth Novak is a 3-year-old boy who lives in Lebanon, OH, in Warren County, outside Cincinnati, the southwestern part of the State. This is a picture of Seth. His dad is self-employed. He helps churches with their construction projects.

The family buys private health insurance for $444 a month that covers the parents and Seth's two older siblings. But Seth has Down Syndrome and other health problems. In addition, in an attempt to get health insurance for her son, Seth's mom checked with six different insurance companies. She was quoted rates from $1,200 to $1,800 per month for private insurance--just for Seth, not for Mr. and Mrs. Novak or the two older children.

The Novaks are a hard-working family, but they simply cannot afford $14,400 a year for a policy covering only one of their children, not to mention their own insurance, another $444. They cannot afford a policy of $14,000 a year for one of their children, which would cover only part of the cost, frankly, for only some of the care Seth needs.

Just this week, the Novak family learned that Seth's eligibility for Medicaid/SCHIP has been denied effective August 31. That is why we have work to do. Where will Seth go for medical care? What if something happens?

There is hope for Seth, though. In Ohio, Governor Strickland and legislative leadership--again, in Ohio, it is a bipartisan effort--by increasing eligibility for the Children's Health Insurance Program to children up to 300 percent of the Federal poverty level. As Assistant Majority Leader Durbin pointed out about an hour and a half ago, these are not people living in the lap of luxury when you say 300 percent of the poverty level. These are middle-class families with significant health problems, who simply cannot afford, on their middle-class salaries and wages, their health insurance.

In January, the legislature and the Governor, understanding the plight that families like Seth's find themselves in, when the new eligibility for the program goes into effect, the Novaks of Lebanon, OH, will be able to restore his health insurance and still pay their bills and take care of their family.

Ohio's leaders have taken care of Seth and thousands like him. They need Congress and the President this week to do the same.

I have a picture of another Ohio family--a success story--who can attest to how the Children's Health Insurance Program helped them. This is Latonya Shoulders of Kent, OH, and her son Phillip Grant, Jr.

In 1996, Latonya was a pregnant, full-time student at Kent State University, my wife's alma mater. She didn't have health insurance or the resources to afford medical care. She enrolled in Ohio's Medicaid Program about halfway through her pregnancy. Her son had Medicaid/SCHIP coverage until he

was 5 years old. That is when she finished her bachelor's degree and got a job as a nurse with insurance benefits.

The Children's Health Insurance Program was there for Phillip in the first years of his life. The program provided for him in several medical emergencies. At 2 years old, he was bitten by another child at daycare and developed acute cellulitis. He spent 2 days in the hospital. When he was about 4, he cut his arm and had a recurrence of cellulitis. This required two surgeries, both inpatient and outpatient treatment.

As any parent knows, raising children means all too many visits to the hospital. These hospital stays could have devastated this family's finances and so much that went with it, right when Latonya was working so hard to get her nursing degree and to get ahead. Latonya is proud that she no longer needs Medicaid/Children's Health Insurance Program coverage for her son.

As I said, she is now a nurse and has health insurance. The program helped Latonya when she and Phillip needed it. Today she is a productive taxpaying citizen, and he is a healthy boy. The goal now is to let other families experience the same benefit.

President Bush came to Cleveland recently--about 25, 20 miles from my home--and told an audience of Ohioans:

People have access to health care in America. After all,

you just go to an emergency room.

The President doesn't seem to realize that is exactly the problem. We all know emergency care is much more expensive than a scheduled visit to a doctor or a clinic. When people go to emergency rooms and hospitals, they end up with large costs which insurance companies bear and then raise their premiums, or the hospital eats the cost. It is a huge burden on hospitals, especially hospitals in places such as rural Appalachia, in southeast Ohio, and places such as Zanesville and Morgan County and Athens and Gallia County and Lawrence County. It is a burden on hospitals such as Metro in Cleveland, which serves our community so well, or Akron General or the Summa or Lorain's community health center. These hard-working families cannot afford health insurance for children, much less if the child has a serious health issue.

I want to make sure children like Seth Novak and Phillip Grant receive the care they need. This is a picture of Seth playing on a slide. I want him to be strong and healthy so he can continue playing and getting his exercise and enjoying his childhood, with health insurance; or this picture of Phillip with his mother at her graduation. I want him to grow up healthy so he can pursue a bachelor's degree just like his mom did. I want every child in Ohio to thrive and develop to his or her full potential.

Ohio families should be able to take care of their bills without worrying about whether they will get their most basic health care needs met. Every eligible child should be able to benefit from the Children's Health Insurance Program--every eligible child in this country. That requires the additional $35 billion that this bill authorizes. That is about how many weeks in Iraq? We spend $2.5 billion a week in Iraq, and here we are asking for $35 billion over 5 years. That requires that additional $35 billion.

I want our President to see past relying on emergency rooms, thinking that is the best option to provide the basic medical care that our low- income families need, and instead, to provide it through an insurance program so a mother can take her child to a family practitioner and get the kind of preventive care that my friend from Oklahoma, Senator Coburn, talked about. Even though he doesn't agree with this legislation, he talked about getting the care that these children need that only health insurance--not emergency room treatment--will get them.

This bill is about children, not about politics. It needs to pass.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.