Floor Speech
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to thank my Chairman Mr. Dingell, Mr. Rangel and Mr. Stark, and all who worked, including on the Senate side, to put this bill together.
It does pain me a great deal, though, to hear my Republican colleagues, and specifically the Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Committee, to basically advocate for the President's veto of the legislation. And I say that because I know that 10 years ago when established the SCHIP program, it was bipartisan - President Clinton, Speaker Gingrich.
And the fact of the matter is that it was done for practical reasons, because we knew that there were kids, as was said by the gentleman from Louisiana, who were not getting health care because their parents were working, their incomes were too high to be eligible for Medicaid.
Now, all we're doing today is being as practical as we were 10 years ago. We know that there are six million kids, almost twice as many as those who are enrolled in the program, who are eligible for this program, under the same eligibility requirements as 10 years ago, who were not enrolled in the program because we don't have enough money to pay for it and we haven't had enough outreach to get them enrolled.
There is nothing new here. This is the same block grant that Speaker Gingrich and President Clinton advocated 10 years ago. But practically speaking, we know that for the first time, in the last two years, the number of uninsured kids has now gone up instead of going down, so we have to do something about it. And we sat down with the Republicans in the senate, with the Democrats in the Senate, and the Democrats here in the House, and we came up with a solution, which was the tobacco tax.
Now, this is fully funded, and the tobacco tax is a great way to pay for it, because if you tax people who are smoking, and they smoke less, then we have less health problems, and it is directly related to trying to provide health insurance. So, don't try to tell me it's not paid for. It's paid for. It's paid for in a good way.
There's no change in eligibility here. We're simply trying to cover the same kids who are eligible, but not enrolled. And if you go along with the President's veto of this legislation, what you're saying is that not only the kids that are not enrolled, but even those who are now in the program, won't be able to the get their health insurance. Shame on you for that. |
