Statements and Speeches

Hearing on Welfare Reform
April 23, 2002

By Henry A. Waxman

Mr. Chairman, unfortunately this Committee has chosen to limit this hearing today to only some of the areas in this Committee's jurisdiction which are part of welfare reform.

We are looking at transitional Medicaid assistance for people leaving the welfare rolls for work, and we are looking at the abstinence education program established in the Welfare Reform law of 1996. But the majority is studiously ignoring the ban on Medicaid coverage for legal immigrant children and pregnant women that resulted from the anti-immigrant provisions that were forced through this Congress in 1996 under the guise of reforming the welfare system.

That policy was wrong then, and it is wrong now. Banning coverage of legal immigrant children and pregnant women for five years after entering the country, and continuing to attribute the sponsors income so that a near-permanent barrier occurs, is worse than simply short-sighted health policy. It is a perverse and insidious discrimination against legal immigrants who work and pay taxes. It risks long term health effects on children born without prenatal care. It undermines efforts for broad participation of children in the Medicaid and SCHIP programs.

And we are not just ignoring the topic in today's hearing. The limited narrowly-drawn mark-up vehicles the Committee will consider tomorrow are obviously designed to block members from having any opportunity to redress this wrong. Some might even conclude this is clearly an effort to protect members from voting on this issue. Better to discriminate in the dark than vote directly on this mean-spirited policy.

I conclude that this is intentional action in response to the wishes of this Administration. It leaves legal immigrant children and pregnant women without health care, and it leaves States holding the bag. If they want to provide coverage–as many do–they have no Federal matching assistance.

It is ironic indeed that this Administration, which seems willing to waive just about any requirement of Medicaid law, has refused to use its waiver authority to allow States to cover legal immigrant women and children, and now has also blocked consideration of legislation to remedy this.

This decision denies your colleague, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the lead sponsor of H.R. 1143, the Legal Immigrant Children's Improvement Act, and the 118 bipartisan cosponsors who have joined us on the bill, the opportunity to vote on remedying this policy.

This is the right time to end that discrimination, and this is the right mark-up to take action on that legislation.

It is doubly ironic that instead we are focusing on continuing a program of abstinence education that has very little to do with good health policy but a lot to do with a political agenda.

Let's be clear: no one is against abstinence. No one is dismissing the advantages of abstinence, particularly for young people who are not yet mature enough to make important life choices. No one if against educating young people about the advantages of abstinence.

But it is a ridiculous policy to pretend that people, including young people, will not be sexually active whatever we may tell them. They need to know how to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and from transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. This knowledge can literally be the difference between life and death.

A program that purports to be about public health but which does not allow open and complete communication on all the ways of avoiding unwanted pregnancies and transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV is not just a poor program but a harmful program.

A gag rule on information is no way to solve a serious public health problem.

In closing, let me note that the transitional medical assistance program, which is also being considered today, is a vital part of any successful effort to move people off welfare and into the work force. I believe this program has broad support on both sides of the aisle.

In view of that, it is particularly regrettable that the legislation before the Committee tomorrow is limited to a one-year extension of transitional medical assistance. Obviously it makes much more sense to reauthorize this program for the full period of reauthorizaiton of TANF.

I hope that my colleagues on the Committee would recognize the clear advantages of that, and will take any opportunity that presents itself on the floor or in conference to achieve this result.