December 19, 2007 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Bill Sali voted today to extend the State Children’s Health Insurance Program for 18 months. The bill also gives doctors temporary relief from a scheduled cut in their Medicare payments.

Of the SCHIP extension, Sali said, “This is a stop-gap designed to help Americans who can't afford private insurance, but without increasing taxes and without adding illegal immigrants, rich families and more adults onto the rolls of this program. That’s what this Congress should have done a long time ago, instead of playing political games and repeatedly offering up an unworkable, massive SCHIP expansion designed to take America down the path of government health care for all.  The action today will buy more time for Congress to complete work on a workable alternative to Senator Clinton's government health care plan.”

Sali said, "Congress must get serious about addressing the problems with America's healthcare system.  The time for adding more Band-Aids has passed."  Without action from Congress, doctor payments would have been cut 10 percent on Jan. 1, 2008 under Medicare’s cost containment formulas.  This bill gives doctors a 0.5 percent increase in their Medicare rates for six months. Sali said, “Americans cannot expect Doctors to continue losing money when providing Medicare services.  But Doctors can't expect Americans to just continue to pay more and more for health care, either.  This stopgap measure was needed to buy a little more time, but again Congress must do more.  I have hope that by reducing administrative and liability costs, and cutting waste from health care by injecting technology and market forces into the mix, Congress can renew our healthcare system and make it affordable for more Americans.”

Sali also voted in favor of a bill to prevent a massive tax increase for middle income Americans. H.R. 3996 keeps the Alternative Minimum Tax from applying to about 60,000 middle income Idahoans. Unlike previous versions of the bill before Congress, this measure contains no tax increases on other Americans. This one year fix would provide for a $66,250 alternative minimum t ax exemption amount for married couples in 2007, up from $62,550 in 2006. The Alternative Minimum Tax was created in 1969 to target 155 very wealthy people who were able to avoid paying taxes. The AMT was never adjusted for inflation, so, over time it has caused more and more middle income Americans to fall within its reach.

“It took Congress far too long to decide that middle income Americans, who are working harder and harder just to get by, don’t deserve a tax increase. These Americans deserve better treatment than what they’ve gotten from Congress, but I’m glad that finally, in the end, the right decision was made,” said Sali.