Children'S Health Insurance Program
Mr. President, a lot of discussion has been going on today, this week, and over the last few weeks about a very important program; we call it SCHIP. That is Washingtonspeak for health care for children, which has a very important role for…
Mr. President, a lot of discussion has been going on today, this week, and over the last few weeks about a very important program; we call it SCHIP. That is Washingtonspeak for health care for children, which has a very important role for the States to administer this program. This week, the House will be voting on the President's veto of this issue. That is the way things work in Washington. It is not very pretty. I am not proud of the whole process we have gone through on this issue.
First of all, I have a message for everybody involved. Let's put low- income, poor kids first. Let's figure out how we deal with their needs. That is what caused this program to begin with.
I had the pleasure of being the majority leader in the Senate in the 1990s when this program was created. I remember the debate. It was pretty hot. Phil Gramm of Texas was saying: Wait a minute, we need to put protections in
here, and Senator Kennedy and Senator Hatch were very much involved. But then a bipartisan agreement broke out, the way we used to have happen around here occasionally. We created a program, well- intentioned, that was targeted for low-income children, to make sure they had insurance coverage. It was not a massive number; I guess we were thinking in terms of 6 million, with the idea that might go up as time went by and more people or parents were made aware of the program and information was gotten to them and they could come onto the program. I think it has worked well. It has been successful. It covered a lot of low-income children who would not have been covered otherwise.
Now, of course, we come to a period where we have to extend the program, and it has been very difficult. I acknowledge right up front that Senator Grassley tried to find a way to work through this issue and get a proper result. He and Senator Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, wound up coming together and getting an agreement. I also acknowledge that a lot of the problems have been exacerbated by the previous administration and this one because they kept granting waivers to States to go above the 200 percent of poverty, up to as high as 350 percent of poverty, making not just low-income, poor children eligible but children of families making up to--I don't know the exact number--$62,000 or $63,000, and some States were applying to go to 400 percent of poverty, which would go as high as an $80,000 income for families. That was not our intent. Plus, adults have been added. Only in Washington can you get confused about a program that is for kids and then start putting adults on it. But States started doing that and waivers were requested, and the administration, unfortunately, for a while granted those waivers. I think we should put limits on those waivers. Thank goodness, finally the administration turned down the most recent application for going up to 400 percent of poverty.
So here we are. Some of us on the Finance Committee said: Look, we want this program extended. The President recommended that it be increased by $5 billion, which is about $1 billion a year. Some of us on the Finance Committee realized that probably was not enough to cover the children now on the program plus to get more low-income children who should be eligible and should be covered, covered. So we were looking at going above the $5 billion increase the President originally suggested. How much? That is what the legislative process is about. Is it perhaps $9 billion instead of $5 billion or maybe $12 billion? I wasn't wedded to a number; I was wedded to a concept and a program to make sure we cover those now on the program. Some should not now be on the program. But we wanted to make sure low-income children are covered first.
The administration, to its credit, did put in place a provision that would say you cannot start insuring middle-income children until you have insured 95 percent of low-income children. This bill which has been vetoed by the President would knock that out. What? If our goal is to insure low-income children, why would we not require that? But the compromise that was worked out went to $35 billion. It would allow for kids who are not in the low-income category to be covered.
The President vetoed it. I think he should. Now the House is going to sustain that veto. My question is, Now what? We have made our positions clear. We have had a grand old time playing politics with kids. Let's get over it. We need to get a result. That is the way it works. Somebody was saying in that very chair last night that the Congress has a role to play. Yes, and so does the President. Some people say: Look, there was a bipartisan compromise worked out. Yes, but some of us who would like to have been involved, who were there when the program was created, didn't get involved. We just thought we would do what we want and shove it over to the President and say: Take this. But he doesn't take it. So now we sit down and work it out.
What is the plan of the Democrats? To let the program just collapse? That is unacceptable. Nobody is going to stand for that. Then I hear: Well, the plan is to keep extending it in increments--maybe 30 days, maybe 90 days. We want to keep it alive until next fall. Look, we can play politics and partisan politics, but do we have to use kids in the process? I don't think we should do that. We need to make sure we have a program that works.
One of my big problems about the plan we have is that it would put 2 million kids who now have private insurance on the Government rolls. That is part of the plan. The plan is to get them off of the private plan, which the families can afford; they could not get on Medicaid, so we will get them on the SCHIP program. I think that is a mistake. Of course, I think there is phony budgeting in the bill the President vetoed. I think the funding is not reliable.
Now, at least the Senate came up with something that was a little more defensible than what the House was working on. They said: We want to take money from Medicare Advantage, elderly people in rural areas, and use that savings to pay for the children's health program. That was a total nonstarter with the Senate, thank goodness.
What did we come up with? Cigarette taxes. Who wants to stand up here and defend tobacco? I will. I smoke a pipe. I don't do it in public. My mother wouldn't approve of me doing that. By George, I make that choice. I don't apologize for it. But, oh, it is a part of the politically correct position now: Let's make everybody quit smoking cigarettes. There are no good tobacco products.
This is still America. We do still have choices. And by the way, let's assume it works. If we jack the price of a package of cigarettes a buck a package, which is what this would do, it is going to eventually, I guess, discourage people and low-income, poor working families: Gosh, we can't afford cigarettes; maybe we will quit. Good, that is great. I don't deny it is not good for your health. Maybe they will quit.
This is the problem: If they do quit, we would not get the money to pay for the SCHIP program. Think about that. We are do-gooders here, we are going to raise taxes on tobacco products to pay for the Children's Health Insurance Program. That way we will make them quit smoking. And, oh, you mean then we would not have the money? Yes. You can't have it both ways. It is the kind of stuff we do around here. It is ridiculous.
So the money would not be there. The program is not going to be funded. We all know better than that; it is going to be funded. At some point, if the tobacco money doesn't come in, which I assume it would not because we have gone crazy trying to tax it out of existence--by the way, this is an area States usually handle. But, no, we are going to put a 61-cent Federal tax on cigarettes and that will further block what the States might do to raise revenue for their programs. By the way, they do a better job of running the health programs than we do anyway. It is part of the inconsistency here.
There are many problems with this bill. I have always said, OK, let's have our political debates. Let's stake out our partisan positions and then let's sit down and work something out. Is that what the people expect us to do? That is what the legislative process is all about.
I don't have the Holy Grail in this area. I realize it would be a give and take. I believe Senator Grassley and I and representatives from the administration and Democrats can work out this legislation. The President said: Let's negotiate. Yes, I think he ought to send his top people down here and humbly say to the leaders in the Congress, Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate: What can we do to work through this bill now and get this program extended to where it covers genuinely poor kids and get it beyond the next election? I urge we do that.
I don't presume to try to say who would be in the room. Pick anybody. But I say this: That is what needs to be done. Let's go ahead and rack up the political points and politically let's say this one goes to the Democrats. Policywise, I have no qualms about the position I have taken. I am perfectly comfortable with it. But also I am prepared to say enough is enough, let's move on, let's get a compromise worked out, and let's protect this program which is well intentioned but which, for good reasons, we have gotten carried away.
There are some people who might say: Let's cover all children with a federally funded health insurance program. Maybe we can raise taxes to $5 a package, 10 bucks a cigar. It is ridiculous. There are other ways we can get revenue. I hope we will get started on that as soon as the House votes. They will sustain the veto, and then we can sit down and work this out.
I yield the floor.