The Republican Policy Committee
Envisioned as the principal forum for the consideration of forward-looking legislative initiatives the Policy Committee is an important means for every member of the Conference to develop sound legislative ideas into meaningful legislation.

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My Thoughts on the SCHIP Debate

I want to say what the Republicans are for in this debate before we talk about some of the flaws in the pending bill.

We are for authorization of the SCHIP legislation. We are for covering low-income and near-low-income children so they have health care benefits.

We are for making sure that the States that are out of funding receive additional funds beginning October, 2007.

So we want to reauthorize the SCHIP program. We do believe that it should be maintained as a block grant program and not become an entitlement program. We believe it should be reauthorized for a specific period of time, not become an open-ended entitlement.

We believe that SCHIP payments should be restricted to citizens of the United States and legal residents who have been here at least 5 years. We do not believe SCHIP payments should be allowed for illegal aliens who have come into this country without the proper documentation. So we are for reauthorization of SCHIP. We are for covering our low-income and near-low-income children.

We disagree with our friends on the majority side on the number of individuals that we are talking about. We believe that children below 200 percent of poverty that do not have health insurance or health coverage today are in the neighborhood of 700,000, not 7 million.

But we do understand that if you raise the level to 400 percent, if you allow States to self-certify above that level so there really is no income test, we do understand if you do that, almost every child in America, 78 million children, could be eligible for some sort of SCHIP assistance under the majority Democratic plan. But if you restrict it to low-income and near-low-income children below 200 percent of poverty, we believe that the Republican substitute, which was not made in order by the Rules Committee at 2 a.m. this morning, solves that.

Posted by Congressman Joe Barton (TX - 06) (08-08-2007, 01:29 PM) filed under Floor Speeches

Comments

Comment by: leftcoastrepub
August 08, 2007 01:31 PM

My major objection to this SCHIP reauthorization is that it comes at the expense of the medicare benefits of seniors. If there was a way to carry on the programs without our seniors being penalized, I'd be all for it. I suspect many of my fellow Republicans share this sentiment.

Comment by: DC Gal
August 08, 2007 02:07 PM

I agree with Representative Barton, we should maintain SCHIP as a block grant program and not turn it into an entitlement program.

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