Floor Statements

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman) would have voted ``yea.''

Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I will not object, I wish to inquire, have we gotten an agreement in place for when the next block of votes could come?

I do not object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it sounds as if maybe what I understood--what I have here that was going to be in the agreement--was altered a little bit when the Senator read the UC. For instance, on the third line, beginning after the semicolon: ``that all time be between Senator Baucus and amendment sponsor; that no amendments be in order to any of the amendments''--is that the way you read it?

I just want to make sure the manager on this side really wants to work with the sponsors of these various amendments.

Well, I am not sure he does. That was the point. But I just wanted to get that clarification.

With that clarification, I have no objection.

Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes from our side. Is that sufficient time, I ask the Senator?

Mr. President, I don't believe there is any other Senator wishing to speak right now, so I will rise in support of the amendment by the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Ensign.

I believe that Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley, Senator Hatch, and those who put together this compromise did want to try to begin to get some control on the explosion of this program. But there are a lot of others who don't want to do that. They want it to go the other way.

Yes, the administration is to blame for a lot of the problems here. They granted the waivers for these States, and they shouldn't have. They started granting waivers for higher and higher and higher income children to be covered, for adults to be covered--and not just pregnant mothers but parents and, in some States, even beyond that.

As I have said before, there is no ``A'' in SCHIP. It is the State Children's Health Insurance Program--for children, SCHIP as we refer to it here in this Chamber. But I do have every reason to believe there are many who fully intend for this program, the CHIP program, to be the program that covers not only low-income children, middle-income children, but all-income children and adults. That is the goal here.

I voted for this program 10 years ago because I thought there was a need to make sure that truly low-income children had access to health care. A lot of them were not covered, obviously, by private insurance or Medicaid, and I thought there was a need to address this particular area. But it is like so many Washington programs; once they get started, they never end. And once they get started, they grow and grow and grow.

Who is going to help get a grip on this program? Who is going to pay for this program? This is a $60 billion, 5-year program this bill would provide for--the underlying bill. The House just passed a bill that I think is close to at least $80 billion over the next 5 years. They pay for it in the House partially by taxes but also by cutting Medicare. So we are taking elderly off of the Medicare Program so we can put more money into the SCHIP program not just for low-income children but for middle-income children and for adults.

I think the Senator is absolutely right. Let us make sure these States provide at least 95 percent of what they are supposed to supply to the low-income children before any adults can get in it. Yes, they will have to take adults off. Exactly. They should have to. They should have never put them on there.

Now, again, I acknowledge we are hopeful this bill will begin to get this under control. It does take away the waiver that is being used, and has been abused by this administration. But I cannot believe that Senators are ignoring the fact that this program is being exploded, covering people who were never intended to be covered, and paying for it by damaging low-income people or elderly people.

I am glad we have this amendment. If we could at least get the adults off this program, even if it does cover some increased level of children below the 200 percent of poverty, I could see that it would be more acceptable. But that is not what this does.

I fear what is going to happen in conference. I don't know, maybe the Senator from Montana and Senator Grassley can sit there and say, oh, no, no, no, we are not going above what we passed in the Senate. But I think the reverse is going to be true. This is the base. The $60 billion is the beginning. It is obvious, if you have a classic conference, which we are not going to have, and we are at $60 billion and the House is at $80 billion, what is it going to be? Oh, $70 billion. That is the way it works around here. That is the way it used to work, although we don't have conferences anymore now. We dished up a product such as we had on this lobbying and ethics fiasco a while ago.

I don't know how we get through this and help the people we want to help, intend to help, and keep it from covering more and more children and more and more adults. If we want to go to Washington bureaucratic- controlled and managed health care, if we want to go ahead and go to Government-run socialistic medicine, fine, this is it. This is the way it is going to happen.

A few years ago, there was an attempt to come in the front door and say, oh, no, we are only going to provide free health care to everybody. It failed miserably, right here. And by the way, it failed in August of that year, I believe it was 1993. Well, here we are coming through the back door this time. And incredibly, even my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle are buying this deal.

I will be back. I don't know whether I will be on the floor of the Senate, but I will be back in years to come and say, I warned you. This thing is going to continue to grow. It won't be $60 billion, $70 billion, or $80 billion, it will be $140 billion over 10, or more.

I appreciate the amendment Senator Ensign came up with. I support it, and I hope we can pass it. And I wish the managers good luck in trying to keep control of this thing. If you pull it off, even though I still think you have way too big a program here, I will be first in line to congratulate you if you can hold it to where it is now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Reserving the right to object. Were you making a unanimous- consent request?

Senator Kyl would like to defer to Senator Specter, who should be here momentarily. They are all on the Judiciary Committee. He would like to let Senator Specter go first, if he could.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I reserved the right to object to make sure I understand what the request is.

Further reserving the right to object.

I will yield to the Senator from Idaho.

Mr. President, if I could, I object. I think we can work this out.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, as soon as she completes her statement, we can go back and get this worked out.

Will the distinguished Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I am very interested in what the Senator has to say.

Are you telling me that if I am in Mississippi and I want to buy a health insurance policy in South Carolina, I cannot do that?

What is the possible explanation for that, or justification?

Absolutely.

I certainly agree. I thank the Senator for bringing this to the attention of the Senate.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask only that the Senator include in his request that Senator Coburn have 5 minutes before his vote, which is the first in the group.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Stevens), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I thank the managers of the legislation for allowing me to go forward with this alternative amendment at this time. I think it is important on an issue of this nature that we have a full discussion and amendments offered and debated and voted on. That helps us get to a conclusion on a major piece of legislation such as this without it turning into a late-night ugly session.

This alternative is intended to show we fully intend to be supportive of the SCHIP program--the program for children's health insurance--and we want it to be done in a responsible way and in a way that actually increases funding to make sure the children it wants to cover are actually covered.

This is an effort of good faith to come up with an alternative that I think is better, in many ways, than the underlying Baucus and others legislation. I have, on two previous occasions, indicated that part of my big problem is the pattern of the coverage going up and up, to the point where States that have waivers now, and under the underlying bill, middle-income children would be covered, and that we are on a steady march to say all children ought to be covered regardless of income.

I think that is a mistake. I think it is unaffordable. It will lead to disruptions, and it will lead to significant tax increases, or it will start to put our children against the parents. The way the House proposes to pay for this underlying bill is to go after funds in the Medicare Program. At least this bill doesn't do that, but it does pay for the increases with tax increases--yes, tobacco tax increases, but still tax increases which, in my opinion, are not going to be achievable and which will leave a huge hole in the funding.

So what we do in the alternative is to direct our attention at the core mission, which is low-income children--not adults, not middle- income children. We pay for it in a way that would equalize this Medicaid coverage in our States. So I think overall it is a very good alternative.

We have a number of Senators who are cosponsors of the legislation and would like to speak on it as we go forward this morning and into the afternoon.

Again, we all support reauthorization of the so-called SCHIP program, and we want to ensure that children have access to good, quality health care insurance. How you do it is the difference. We have come up with a different alternative that does it better because it puts kids first. It makes sure we take care of the kids, not an ever-growing list of kids and not a lot of adults. I

think you have to do it in a fiscally responsible way so we don't have huge holes develop in the outyears. One of the problems in the underlying bill is that down the road, in 6 years or so--and before that, in my opinion--the numbers are not going to add up. We will not have the income we were going to have, and there will be an explosion of the costs that are involved. So I think we should pay attention to the impact not just next year, or in 5 years, but it will be the situation in 7 or 8 years. That is what this bill does.

We have heard talk in the last couple of days from our friends on other side of this issue that they are concerned about the insurance for kids. I believe that, but that will be done in this bill. Let me tell you why. Under the Kids First amendment we sent to the desk, 1.5 million more children will be covered under SCHIP in 2017 than under the Baucus bill. Yes, that is a long way down the road, but the truth of the matter is we need to look at these programs over a 10-year period, not just the 5 years, because the commitments we make in that 5 years will continue to go up. We need to think about what is going to be the impact. You heard it right. It would cover actually more children in 2017. The Kids First bill will cover 3.6 million children. The Baucus bill will cover 2.1 million children in the SCHIP program.

The Kids First bill actually spends more money than the Baucus bill. You heard that right. We increase SCHIP spending by $9.3 billion over the next 5 years, expanding coverage to 1.3 million new children. Because the Kids First Act doesn't rely on any kind of budget gimmicks, as the underlying bill does, we can actually spend more on SCHIP over the budget window than the underlying bill does. I think it is important we focus on honest budgeting.

I realize honest budgeting is quite often in the eye of the beholder, but I don't think anybody would deny there are budget problems with the underlying bill. The Baucus bill has a long-term budget point of order against it, meaning that over the long-term it will significantly increase the budget deficit. The reason for this is the budget bill relies on the declining revenue. When you have the amount of increase on tobacco products included in the underlying bill--61 cents a pack for cigarettes and, of course, the same application to other tobacco products, including cigars--you are going to get less revenue than you project. People will not be able to afford it. They are going to change their habits. Some people would say that is going to be good for health. OK. I am not a big advocate of smoking, even though I smoke a pipe privately. Nobody here has ever seen me do that.

I think we have to be honest about what is going to be the impact the next 5 years. This will also contribute to an increase in Medicaid costs because the Baucus bill reduces SCHIP funding in those outyears, and CBO assumes those kids will have to be moved to Medicaid. That is part of what is going to be happening. More children will be under SCHIP under the bill and more children will be on Medicaid and more children will be coming off private health insurance. I don't think we want to do at least two out of those three things.

So I think it is important we cover the children in the low-income area and that we cover more children. That is what this alternative does. This amendment doesn't have a dime in tax increase to pay for it. It would not be subject to a point of order. Then it does a couple of other very important things. Unfortunately, last year, we never could get action on the associated health plans, the small business health plans.

We were so close, and yet because of some objections, perhaps legitimately, that the sponsors could not agree on, we did not give this opportunity to small business women and men to cover more of their employees, and they would like to. I talk to small business men and women. They don't understand why they cannot form groups and provide coverage to these low-income, entry-level workers, a lot of times unwed mothers, high school dropouts.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why we do not give that option. It would probably be a way that 10 to 20 million more working adults could get coverage. We do include in the bill the small business health plans.

We also include important health savings accounts reforms and provide for a study of ways to increase health insurance coverage through reforms to our Tax Code to enhance tax equity.

The Kids First Act is an amendment that all my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, should support. The amendment enrolls millions more kids in SCHIP than the underlying bill and does it in a fiscally responsible way and avoids budget points of order. It will not expand Medicaid spending.

I urge my colleagues to actually take a look at this legislation. We have spent a long time coming up with it. I actually thought this was probably the bill that would come out of the Finance Committee when we started. We had bipartisan meetings. We talked about, OK, do we want to do this health insurance program for children? Yes, we do. How much do we want to do, and how are we going to pay for it? Of course, there were those in the beginning who said: No, we need a lot more than this. We need an increase of $50 billion or more.

I know the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry, feels strongly about that point. He made his point legitimately. He said: Should we just decide how many we want to cover and don't worry about the cost and just do it? No, I think we also have to worry about the cost of these programs and how it is going to be paid for, who pays for it.

One of the things that worries me because we have this gap in the outyear funding--we have had pictures of children on the floor of the Senate. I have some grandchildren I worry a lot about--a 9-year-old grandson and two little girls, just under 6, and one 3. My daughter is a working mom full time, partially so her family can have insurance coverage, and her husband is a small businessman, an entrepreneur. It is not easy working full time as a mom, having two children, and dealing with other issues she really cares about, such as charitable activities. I worry about them. She is working to make sure they have this coverage, but I am worried they are going to be saddled with the cost of this extra coverage.

So let's do what we can affordably while complying with the underlying core mission of making sure that low-income children have access to this coverage. Generally speaking, my daughter and her husband would be considered middle-income Americans. That is what they would consider themselves. Yet they are having to work to get the coverage they want and barely making it so that others can have coverage who are making probably almost as much money as they are. I don't know, the way things are going, they might be eligible for this program. I don't think they should be.

Common sense is what is called for. We have a long way to go. There is no question the House bill is going to be much larger and funded in a much worse way. By putting down this marker, giving Members a legitimate alternative that a lot of Senators have been involved in, is a good way to go.

I urge Members to support this alternative.

I yield the floor.

Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Madam President, the Baucus bill we have before us is a $35 billion increase over the current $25 billion, a $60 billion bill. Our Kids First alternative amendment targets children. SCHIP does not have an A in it. We should not move steadily toward more and more higher income children and adults being included in the program. This one is targeted to children. The cost is $9 billion above the $25 billion in the baseline. It will cover an additional 1.3 million children over the next 5 years. This 40-percent increase would maintain children currently enrolled and insure 2.2 million more children by 2017 than is in the underlying Baucus bill. It also includes the small business health plans, which I believe would lead to the coverage of an additional 10 or 20 million people who work for small businesses that now cannot get coverage. There is no tax increase in this provision. It is paid for by equalizing the State match for Medicaid administrative expenses at 50 percent.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Madam President, if the distinguished Senator would withhold so I could just address a couple of questions to him on his amendment? The amendment would say that the States have to take into consideration the gross income of the family, not including certain so- called income disregards.

That is the way we talk in Washington, but to the average man and woman, what are we talking about? Are we saying, even though we think they may have other sources of income--I don't know what that might be, and I was going to ask you, are you talking about rental income? Are you talking about some part-time income? I wonder, what types of things are used by these various States to reduce the gross level of income so they can get under this, whatever it is, 350 percent of poverty or--400 percent of poverty is the newest application, I understand, from New York. Do you have any information on that?

I thank the Senator for his explanation and for his amendment because it is clear that through these waivers or through moves by various States, without questioning their motives, they have been able to develop a system which is very unequal among the States.

I found, for instance, the reimbursement rate to the States--by the States--as required by the States for Medicaid, for instance, varies greatly from as low as 50 percent to as high as 80 percent. That is not fair, and we need to do something about it. I thank the Senator for yielding.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, we were alternating back and forth on both sides, but the Senator from Illinois had a need to go forward. I agreed that he would go first and then I would follow.

Let me say on the bill we have here, again, it is very easy to get up and talk about children and the need to help children. That affects us all. I am a parent. I am a grandparent. There is nothing that excites me more in the world than going to see my four little grandchildren. I can't stand the thought of children anywhere, regardless of income level, not getting the kind of health care they need. That is why I voted for SCHIP in 1997. I remember Senator Kennedy was in the debate. Senator Phil Gramm of Texas had a little different point of view. Senator Hatch was involved. We came to a conclusion. We got a good program to help children who did not have health care. I thought we had done a good thing.

The problem here is, we are exploding the program in terms of costs, tax increases, or cuts in the House. They are not doing the tobacco tax increase. They are cutting Medicare Advantage which affects people at the other end of the age schedule, people who need Medicare Advantage to get health care in rural areas in States such as mine.

There is a balance here. Why can't we agree on a reasonable increase to make sure we continue to cover children who would not be covered otherwise. Also what is happening here is a steady march toward higher and higher and higher income level children. You heard Senator Allard talk about the fact, now we are up in the range of $73,000 income for a family of four. The ultimate goal is for all children to be covered by ``Mother Washington,'' Washington bureaucracy health care. Why should any family have to worry, regardless of income, or any State have to worry about children being covered of all ages, forever, for everything, including dental care?

I agree, dental needs can be as damaging healthwise as any other illness. I am connected to a family of dentists, dental hygienists, and dental technicians. But the question is, how much can the Government pay for? Why can't we keep some limits? Why do we want to force people off of private insurance? We are going to have children now covered by private insurance going into SCHIP or Medicaid. Why are we trying to force everybody on to SCHIP?

This chart shows what is happening. When we started this program in 1997, the next year, 1998, the children enrollment in Medicaid and SCHIP, the children's health program, was 27 percent covered by Medicaid, 1 percent was covered by the Children's Health Insurance Program, and 72 percent by other programs including private insurance. By 2005, it had grown to 37 percent covered by Medicaid, 8 percent by the CHIP program, and 55 percent other. With this bill, the underlying bill going into effect the way it is now, it will jump to 71 percent of all children will be covered by Medicaid and SCHIP, and only 29 percent other. You see the steady march toward every child being covered by this particular program.

The problem with this bill can be described with A, B, C. Not only have you had the steady march of higher and higher income level children being covered, adults are being covered. Where is the ``A'' in SCHIP? Again, it is a creeping thing. First, gee whiz, yes, it is supposed to be for children, but pregnant mothers should be covered and what about parents of children. There are some other adults that maybe need some extra consideration, too. So it is not only higher and higher income children, it is adults and more adults and even more adults. So the first appropriate problem is adults, A.

B, we are talking billions here. The underlying program is $25 billion. The Finance Committee adds 35 at a minimum on top of that. And in the outyears it expands tremendously, up to, I think in the year 2012, the number is maybe 37 billion in that single year. Remember, if we pass the Finance Committee bill, that 60 billion--25 plus 35, it will be 60 billion--the House is going to pass a bill at what, 80, 90, 100 billion, paid for by taking money away from Medicare beneficiaries and we go to conference, if we go to conference. What will happen? What always happens, you split the difference. We are at 60; they are at 90. How about 75, $75 billion? How is that going to be paid for? It is going to be paid for by cutting benefits for the elderly and/or raising taxes for all kinds of people.

We can fix this, though. It gets back to the A, B, C. Keep to the core mission, children who are low-income families. We need to get back to that. We have some good amendments pending. We should pass the Bunning amendment which would eliminate the high income eligibility above 300 percent, the Allard amendment which would stop the income disregards which drives the income level up steadily, and I understand that Senator Gregg will have one that will strike the adult coverage.

We can fix this. We could get together on a bill that would be bipartisan and would help the children who do need it, the ones we started out to help before we got the bright idea we will cover everybody by the Children's Health Insurance Program.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am glad to yield.

Madam President, we do have a program that has input from the Treasury, yes.

Well, if I can respond, I have a solution. Let's cut that. Maybe we are not entitled to that.

Well, now, Madam President, I might say, the Senator has been here much longer than I have, and I presume he would know the origin of how these programs were created and voted for or against them. But I want to correct something he said right at the beginning. I have not advocated cutting children. I advocate covering the children who are now covered and making sure we cover the children we have committed to. What I am opposed to is the ever increasing income level and number of children and adults.

What about adults who are being covered by this program? If it is going to be ``ACHIP,'' adults-children health insurance program, that is one thing. But I would like to keep the focus on covering the children who really need it and would not be able to get it perhaps through a private insurance program or in Medicaid.

But if the Senator wants to propose we cut the Senator's benefits, I will be glad to join him in that.

Everything we are doing to ourselves, we might as well do that too. That would be fine with me. If we could control the growth of this program, I would be more than glad to help pay for it.

I am perfectly delighted to do that. Of course, my children are grown, and they are not covered at all by this, but I would be glad, to control that, to do anything the Senator wants to do to the Senate. I suspect it richly deserves it.

And another thing, what I am saying is, one State is only covering children up to 200 percent, other States now have 350 percent, or even one of them is now wanting 400 percent of poverty for children and adults.

All I am saying is, stick with the program we intended. Let's not turn this into just a Washington bureaucratic health-run program. That is what this is all about. This is about moving us toward a system we could not get any other way, where the Government will pay for and control everything in terms of health coverage in America. I do not believe the American people want it.

I worry about my children and grandchildren in this respect. What kind of burden are we putting on their backs in terms of what they will have to pay for in the future? Does nobody ever think about that anymore? Every program is growing exponentially; every one of them. So I worry about my grandchildren having to pay for all the things we are coming up with here.

I yield the floor.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I believe under the agreements that have been worked out I am going to speak at this time with regard to the SCHIP issue.

Mr. President, let me first emphasize that we will have a motion to proceed to the State Children's Health Insurance Program this afternoon, and Republicans and Democrats will vote for that procedural motion to go forward because all of us support reauthorization of the so-called SCHIP program, which is Washington speak for State Children's Health Insurance Program.

This is a classic example of how no good deed goes unpunished because I remember when this program was developed legislatively on the Senate floor. The Senator from Utah was a key player. I remember some of the exchanges that were made at the time with Senator Hatch talking and Senator Kennedy and Senator Phil Gramm when we created this program. This was about, I guess, 10 years ago or so. We created it because we did believe there was a need in America for children to have health assistance--a health insurance program--particularly low-income children.

There were a large number of children who were not then covered, so it was well intentioned, and everybody wanted to go forward with a program that would cover these children so their health needs could be addressed and so they could live healthier lives.

I just heard Senator Hatch make the point that if we don't have this type of health insurance available for children in critical times, a longer term cost will greatly exceed what the cost might be for the program at this time. So we were in it together. We created it at a time when we had a Republican majority in the Congress and a Democratic President in the White House. It was generally a bipartisan effort, and we created a good program that was targeted. It was expensive, but we believed it was important that we get this done.

Now, since that time, this program has continued to grow, and we have seen States start adding not only higher and higher levels of income for these children to be covered--up now to, I think, 350 percent of poverty in some States, and another State now is actually trying to get it up to 400 percent of poverty, which certainly is not low-income children. That is middle-income coverage. That would cover children in the range of a family of three making $60,000 to $70,000 a year. So that has really started causing problems, with the higher and higher level of income for children and adults being included. That was never the intent.

The core mission of this program was for children to get this help, but more and more States have included adults, and not just the pregnant mother but the parents and even adults beyond that in some of these States that have gotten waivers. It is going to be argued by some Senators, Senator Grassley and probably Senator Baucus, that a lot of this problem has been caused by this administration--probably the previous administration but certainly this administration--by giving waivers to the States to begin to cover a higher and higher income level of children and adults. That is a legitimate criticism. They shouldn't have done it, and they shouldn't have done it the way they did. And certainly they shouldn't have done it repeatedly. I don't know how many States have gotten waivers now--14, 16 States, something of that nature, and more to come probably.

Some people at the Department of HHS will say: Well, we don't have much discretion under the waiver. I don't believe that is true, and certainly they had more discretion than they exercised. So the program now, with these waivers, has got lots of problems, and that is why I oppose it in its current form.

Let me first talk about the Baucus bill and give the reasons I am opposed to it. The baseline for this children's health program is $25 billion over 5 years--$25 billion. I believe the President, and these are general numbers, but I think the President asked for basically a $5 billion increase over those 5 years, which would have brought it up to the $30 billion range. I was thinking in committee that was not enough;

that we were going to have to go higher so that we could try to cover those children now covered in the program, realizing some who would be eligible are not covered because, No. 1, they may not have applied, No. 2, they are covered by private insurance, and No. 3, they were covered by Medicaid. But it was clear to me it was going to take more money in order to cover the children we really intended to cover than the basic of $25 billion.

Now, I thought we were going to be talking in the range of $7 billion or $8 billion, and I still believe that is the right number to continue to cover those children who are now covered by the program. The bill we have before us, though, has risen by $35 billion above the so-called baseline for a total of $60 billion over 5 years--$60 billion. A program that was originally intended for low-income children to get this health insurance, certainly never intended to be $25 billion, now in this bill would be $60 billion over 5 years, and explosive in the outyears. And this is before we go to conference with the House. The House is talking $70 billion to $100 billion.

So even though one might say: Well, this bill has gone way too far, this is the new baseline, if we pass it at $60 billion, it will only go up. What will it be, $70 billion, $80 billion, $90 billion for this program--only for this program? And by the way, a program that will include adults and will include children probably certainly well above 200 percent of poverty.

That is why we have an alternative that will make sure we cover those children we originally intended to cover and children now under the program, but we did not want this sort of doubling of the size of the program in the next 5 years. Ours would even provide for a 33-percent increase over the next 5 years. We have a real problem. It is a massive spending increase. It uses certain budget considerations to deal with what happens after the fifth year.

Some people say: Well, there will be time to change that. But nobody really believes that once you build a program, like this chart shows, that goes up, up, and up, and then all of a sudden when it reaches a certain level, it drops back down. It won't do that. It will continue to go up. And therein is the second part of the problem.

How do you pay for this? The bill before us has tax increases in the $61 billion to $70 billion range. I believe that is accurate, but a minimum of $61 billion, with that coming from a tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products. The fact is, when you tax something with that much of an increase, which takes it up to a full dollar from the current 39 cents, that is a huge increase. When you have that kind of increase, a dollar a pack on cigarettes, what you are going to get is less revenue. So at a time when the cost of the program is going up, the revenue that is actually going to be coming in is going down. That is a prescription for huge budget problems.

Of course, the argument again is, well, that is down the road; we will have time to fix that later on. But one of my concerns about the program as it is now is that it also will actually be taking children now on private insurance--children who have coverage--and they will be going off private insurance coverage and going into the so-called SCHIP program. There are an estimated 600,000 children--and I don't know how you estimate those numbers, which I suspect are low--but a large number of kids, up to perhaps as many as 2.1 million, will be moved from private health insurance programs to the Government-run health care program.

So here we have a massive spending increase, we have a program that will be taking children now covered off of private insurance and moving them on to a government program, and you have a massive tax increase.

We will have an alternative that reauthorizes the program, keeps it focused on the core mission of low-income children, which does increase funding generously, by as much as 33 percent, and avoids the huge tax increase. And the revenue it brings in is real, not a revenue that will be on a declining basis. It will give, additionally, millions of Americans access to health insurance through the small business health plans and includes reforms in the health savings accounts.

Mr. President, I know we have a number of Senators lined up to speak, but I just wanted to begin to point out some of the basic problems of how we got here, what is in this bill, and the fact that we will have an alternative that I believe is better than the one that was reported by the Finance Committee.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Martinez) the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions), and the Senator Alabama (Mr. Shelby).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would have voted ``yea.''

The PRESIDNG OFFICER. Are there are any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. President, will the distinguished majority leader yield for a question?

That is what I wish to comment on, Mr. President, if the distinguished Senator will yield briefly. Without getting into the substance or without questioning anybody's motives, it is important that we understand--and I can put this in the form of a question to the majority leader--if, in fact, this appeal of the ruling of the Chair should succeed, that would do away with rule XVI, as I understand it, and then we would all have a grand old time legislating on appropriations bills.

Before the leader responds, let me say there are pent-up feelings on this side, probably on your side: Well, we can't get the authorizations and some of the language we want and the appropriations bills may be about the only thing moving through here, in some respects, and we want to have an opportunity to legislate on appropriations bills. But here is part of my concern, honestly. I don't think we can win that battle against the other side. I suspect you all would wind up legislating more than we would on appropriations bills.

Mr. President, I think we need to calm down around here. There is a rule on the books for a reason. For good reason we took an action that knocked it out a few years ago. I learned painfully what a mistake that was. We should not be legislating on appropriations bills. You can make a good-faith effort around here if you want to do that. I think this action would cause some consequences we would not want, if we look at it in the future.

Am I stating this correctly, I ask the majority leader?

Mr. President, will the distinguished majority leader yield briefly?

Mr. President, I feel a necessity at this point--and I will follow it with a question--to also say that I understand the right of the Senator from South Carolina to do this procedure. I am not questioning that at all. I think the result would be one that would not be good for the institution, and I think we would be abusing it on both sides.

But also I want to emphasize the right of a Senator to modify his own amendment. I wasn't here when the discussions took place with regard to Senator Vitter's modifying of his own amendment, and I know that has caused some consternation.

Mr. President, if I could say to the majority leader, wouldn't it be better for this institution if we would not get in the position of questioning each other's motives? I realize we have to be honest with each other, and I understand what everybody is doing. I understand the amendment on Osama bin Laden. Yes, we want to catch him, and I know there is a lot being done--and I won't get into the intelligence--and I understand what Senator DeMint is doing, but I would hope this would give us an opportunity, in a bipartisan way, for the sake of this institution, to step back, to calm down, and to stop trying to do these things to each other on both sides of the aisle.

I am grandstanding, and I apologize, but my purpose is to try to say to the institution, to our people, I hope we will find a way to avoid this. I think it would be a mistake, and I assume the majority leader agrees with that.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman) would have voted ``no.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback).

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I believe I do have the right to at least explain my reservation.

Mr. President, I do object. I would like to ask if the distinguished majority leader will give me an opportunity to at least respond to some of the things he had to say. I think that would be the way we usually do business around here.

If the majority leader yielded the floor, I seek recognition.

Does the majority leader yield the floor?

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Madam President, I have been waiting 1 hour to respond to some comments that were directed at me.

I had hoped that in this debate and in this Congress, we would be able to maintain some semblance, some modicum of courtesy. But it appears we have lost it all. I have been in Congress 35 years. I have been in the Senate 19 years. I have been in a variety of positions. Never before have I been denied or did I ever deny any Senator the opportunity to have a reservation on his right to object to a unanimous consent request. Now that has occurred. So that courtesy, one of the few remaining ones we have left in this institution, is gone.

Let me correct some of the things that have been said here that the record will show, certainly, in the debate. The other side speaks about a new standard for 60 votes. That is interesting.

During this Congress, 47 clotures have been filed. In the 106th Congress, there were 71; 107th, 72; 108th 62; the 109th, 68. This is not a new phenomenon. It has occurred all the time, regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats were in the majority. Even Senator Reid said twice this year:

In the Senate it has always been the case you need 60

votes. I don't have 60 votes--

The particular issue he was referring to--

60 votes are required for just about everything.

That was what Senator Reid had to say earlier this year.

We are ready to vote. We could have a vote on this amendment, the Levin-Reed amendment, right now. We are ready to go. We can have the cloture vote that would be scheduled in the morning in an hour, to be fair to everybody, so we could have wrapup statements. Everybody knows we can have that vote now, or 5:30 or 6:30, or in the morning. I have been involved in these all-night discussions. Interestingly, the last time we had one of these so-called all-night debates, it was because the Democrats wanted to require 60 votes to confirm a Federal judge, which had not been the practice throughout the history of this great country.

I understand about the 60-vote requirement. Nobody is surprised by this. We have already had 60-vote votes taken on amendments on this bill.

First, before the majority whip leaves, let me ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote scheduled for the morning occur at 5:30 this afternoon.

Madam President, I have not yielded the floor, so I wish to go ahead and complete my remarks on the broader issues that have been raised here.

We debated in March and April and May whether we should confirm General Petraeus, whether we should go forward with the funds that our troops needed to do the job, and whether the surge could go forward. The vote was 80 to 14 in May to go forward with trying to bring down the violence, get control and, of course, encourage the Iraqi government to do more. We confirmed General Petraeus unanimously. They are already saying the surge has failed when, as a matter of fact, the troops that were supposed to be involved in that effort have only been there for some 3 weeks. So I think it is premature and unfair to the men and women who are there on the ground doing the job. We need to have the debate, allow both sides to have their say, but it is going to require 60 votes, and then we can go on to the underlying bill.

This is the Defense authorization bill. Every year we pass the Defense authorization bill. Yet I think we have had maybe one amendment even considered that has to do with the underlying bill, which provides funds and authorization for our troops for the

equipment they need, the supplies, the ships, the planes, the pay raise, and quality of life. That is something we have to come to terms with. We have to have a debate on amendments that affect this bill. We could work out how to do that.

Somebody said amendments are being blocked. As a matter of fact, Senator Levin and Senator McCain are clearing amendments right now. The process is underway. So I would say I am very disappointed in the way this issue is being handled. I must say I am even surprised we have allowed it to deteriorate to this level, but I think we will get through it. The Congress is not going to precipitously mandate that our troops begin to be withdrawn. We are going to go forward and allow them the time to do the job. In September and October we will debate this issue again, as we should. But to come back again after having just voted in May to allow us to go forward and say here we are in July and the surge has failed, I think that is a terrible mistake.

I yield the floor.

I object, Madam President.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Bennett), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the Senator from North Carolina (Mrs. Dole), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kyl), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Lott), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Martinez), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Stevens), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner).