Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
November 1, 2007

SENATOR HUTCHISON DISCUSSES THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM REAUTHORIZATION ACT


MRS. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the SCHIP bill, but also to say we should not be voting on this legislation right now. This is a time and an issue on which our bipartisan Congress, with a bipartisan consensus, can sit down with the President and his staff and come to a conclusion that will continue a program that has been very effective. However, that is not what we are faced with today. Today we are faced with voting on the exact same bill--not the exact same bill, almost the exact same bill--that we voted on and the President vetoed only 2 weeks ago.

Now, I voted for the first bill. I think it was a good bill. It had many good features. But I expected, when the President's veto was sustained in the House, the House leadership would take a step back, meet with the President's staff, work something out, and go forward with something new--a new try.

That is not what we have in this bill before us. That is why I voted against the motion to proceed. I believe we needed more time to craft a bill that would be more acceptable to the President and could have the bipartisan consensus to pass and go to the President for signature. That is not what happened.

Instead, the House turned around and very shortly passed almost the same bill. Eighteen Republicans voted for virtually this bill. We also signed a letter saying to our Senate and House leadership: Please work with the President to come up with a compromise.

The President has said he would like a compromise. He has said he would like to move forward. I think there is a very strong middle ground because the bill that is before us is a vast step beyond the program as it has been in place, and I think we could still do a lot more coverage. We could cover more children; we could cover more families with a bill that is not quite as far reaching as the one that is before us today. Even though I support the one that is before us today--and I will continue to do so--I do want a good-faith effort to come to a compromise that everyone can support.

The bill does continue the program we have started. It provides, today, insurance for over 300,000 children in Texas. It also includes an important provision that protects Texas's ability to cover more children with health insurance. During the SCHIP debate, I worked with members of the Senate Finance Committee to ensure the legislative changes did not harm Texas's ability to fund the program, and we were successful. That language was in the original bill, and it is in the bill that is before us today.

However, I do think it is important we move forward in a way that will achieve success. I want to make sure a fast-growing State such as Texas does not lose the money it does not use in any 1 year in the next year and the following year. That was my concern because many of the fast-growing States do not use their money this year, but they will need it next year or the year after because there is a stronger effort to sign up the children who are eligible. That was accomplished in this bill. That is one of the key reasons I support it because I do think it is an efficient use of our taxpayer dollars to cover children so they are not going to be more seriously ill because they have not had the preventive medicine that coverage in Medicaid or SCHIP--which is the next step above Medicaid--can provide. That is a worthy goal for our Congress.

I am going to vote for the bill today. But I do hope this signal is heard; that is, we would ask the leadership in the House and the leadership in the Senate to sit down with the President's staff to work out an agreement where we can all support this bill that will continue the very important mission of SCHIP to give a safety net to children who are above the Medicaid level but still 200 percent or 300 percent at most above poverty and give them an opportunity.

I think some of what has been talked about as compromise is quite good, quite sound, quite creative, such as you go to 250 percent above the poverty level, but between 250 percent and 350 percent you give tax credits for families to cover themselves with private insurance. You help them. You subsidize their ability to stay in the private market.

We do not want a big government program. We do want to cover SCHIP and Medicaid through government auspices, but we want to not supplant the private insurance that many people in the 250 percent to 350 percent above poverty level already have access to. But if those people who do have access to health care because they work in a company that provides this opportunity choose not to take it because they are going to get a free government program, that does not do anyone any good. It is not going to increase the number of children who are covered by insurance because they would have given up health insurance in order to go on a government program. That is not what we are after. We are after increasing the number of children covered. We are after, also, keeping the basis of our private health insurance healthy in our country.

So, Madam President, I thank you for allowing this debate to go forward. I thought we should have negotiated a little longer, but we are not. So we are now going to have cloture on the bill itself. I will support that cloture, and I will support the bill. But I do not want the same bill to come back a third time. I expect sincerity on the part of Congress and the President to come forward with something new that would be closer to a bipartisan agreement where we can all declare success, and the beneficiaries of this success will be the poorer children of our country.

Madam President, I yield the floor.


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