Senate Opening

The Senate Convened.

Opening Remarks

 
Senator Reid: (10:03 AM)

·         Today --

·         The Senate will resume consideration of the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

·         Senator Designate Kirsten Gillibrand will be sworn in as the Junior Senator from New York at 12:30 PM.

·         Following the swearing in, the Senate will recess until 2:15 PM for the weekly policy luncheons.

·         There will be no Morning Business this week.

·         Votes are expected this afternoon.

 
Senator McConnell: (10:07 AM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "Two of my colleagues, Senator Grassley and Senator Hatch, reached across the aisle to craft a bipartisan compromise in the last Congress. Unfortunately our Democratic colleagues have gone back on many of the prior agreements that were reached in creating that bill last year, making this issue more contentious than it ought to be and setting a troubling precedent for future discussions on health care reform."

o    SUMMARY "Republicans will offer amendments to fix the shortcomings and to provide a responsible alternative to return SCHIP to its intended purpose, serving the kids in struggling families who need the help most. That is who we ought to be helping. Our bill, The Kids First Act, will provide funding increases to state SCHIP programs and help them find those eligible children not yet enrolled and our Kids First idea is better because it closes the loophole that allows some states to extend their program to higher income families even while they have thousands of lower income children who still aren't covered."

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

 
Senator Durbin: (10:20 AM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "What we want to do this week is to prove, as we did last week, that we can have amendments offered constructively, that we can debate them, deliberate them, and vote on them in an expeditious way. We can have a fair hearing on these amendments and come to a vote and not face a cloture vote and 30 hours of the Senate sitting in quorum calls with nothing happening. But it takes a cooperative effort on both sides. I think we can reach that by the end of the week and pass this critical legislation to give 4 million kids like Manolo here a chance for a better life."

 
Senator Grassley: (10:24 AM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2) and the Grassley Amendment.

o    SUMMARY "The amendment I'm offering today is very simple. It increases the coverage of low-income American children currently eligible for Medicaid, but who are uninsured relative to the bill before the Senate. My amendment does this by striking federal dollars for coverage of legal immigrants and uses those funds to cover more low-income American kids instead...So, does that sound right? It is right. It does not reduce the number of kids covered. It covers just as many low-income kids and maybe even more. The difference is that the additional low-income kids who get health coverage with my amendment are U.S. citizens."

 
Senator Hatch: (10:29 AM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2) and the Hatch Amendment.

o    SUMMARY "I began this year with the great hope we would all come together to complete our work of 2007 and have a bill signed into law that would have the overwhelming support of both sides of the aisle. But that hope has turned quickly into disappointment, and the promise of change into a commitment to the same."

o    SUMMARY "Today, there is no standard for states to collect data on the uninsured, including low-income children. So, it is a guessing game for states to figure how many low-income children reside in their states. It is a no-brainer to incorporate a standard way to collect this important information to help us figure how many low-income children need health coverage."

o    SUMMARY "My amendment simply says that before a state may exercise an option to provide CHIP and Medicaid coverage to legal immigrant children and pregnant women, the state must demonstrate to the Secretary of Health and Human Services that 95% of its children under 200% of the federal poverty level have been enrolled in either the state's Medicaid program or the CHIP program."

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

 
Senator Cardin: (11:08 AM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "Studies have shown that enrollment in CHIP improves the health of children. When previously uninsured children signed up for CHIP they are far more likely to get regular primary medical and dental care and less likely to visit the emergency room for services rendered in a doctor's office. That saves us health care dollars. They are more likely to receive immunizations and to lead a healthier life and more likely to get the prescription drugs they need."

o    SUMMARY "As we reauthorize the program, let's make sure we make real progress. Our bill will extend the program for 4 1/2 years and allow an additional 4.1 million children nationwide to enroll. Mr. President, 4.1 million children! We've got to get this bill done."

 
Senator DeMint: (11:19 AM)

·         Spoke on the DeMint Amendment to the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "The subject of that amendment is a cost-sharing arrangement with the states for all recipients of SCHIP over 200% of poverty that states are required to ask for some small cost-sharing with people who use this insurance."

 
Senator Casey: (11:25 AM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "With this legislation, we have an opportunity to guarantee that millions more children will see a doctor six times in their first year of life. That's something we ought to do. They get a complete physical exam, height and weight and other developmental milestones are measured. Hearing and vision is checked. Important topics like normal development, nutrition, sleep, safety, and infectious diseases and all kind of other issues are discussed. General preventive care. Now, if we allow some of these discussions and debates today to bog this down and not get this passed in a bipartisan way, what we're preventing is, among other things, millions of children will not get this. As simple as that."

 
Senator Coburn: (11:36 AM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "Let's talk about what this bill really costs. What we know it would cost if we didn't play a game with the numbers. And what we can do to offset some of the programs that President Obama says need to be eliminated so we can do the things that are good. There's not one attempt in this bill to do that. As a matter of fact, there's an attempt to cover non-U.S. citizens at the expense of U.S. citizens in this bill. So basically we're going to keep a 9% approval rating because we're not going to earn the trust of the American people about being honest about what something really costs. I want to tell you, that undermines the whole debate."

 
Senator Casey: (11:47 AM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

o    SUMMARY "The problem for a lot of families right now is not that they're lacking in choice of options here. The problem for a lot of families, if their children are not enrolled, is they have no choice. They have no health insurance at all except if they want to go to the emergency room, which is bad for the economy. It's bad for that family because they're usually too late in the game, so to speak, to get the kind of preventive care or to mitigate the problem."

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

 
Senator Burr: (11:50 AM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "We're spending $34 billion over five years to increase enrollment in SCHIP by 5.7 million children who 2 million of them are currently covered under their parents' health care insurance. When our benefit gets bigger, when it becomes more inclusive, what happens? We say to the American people, why should you pay for it? We've got a program to cover your children. Now, there is an alternative, and it's already been offered in one of the three amendments. It is the McConnell Amendment, 'Kids First.'"

o    SUMMARY "We had this debate last year as we got ready for reauthorization, where all of a sudden SCHIP dropped the 'S.' And before we came to the Floor, SCHIP was back to SCHIP. But I've noticed with the first two speakers on the Majority side today, that everything refers to the CHIP program. So I assume that I haven't picked up the part in the language of this bill yet that is eliminated this as a state program and it's going to be the Children's Health Insurance Program only run by the federal government, administered by the federal government. And the states won't have diddly to do with it. I just haven't found that yet, but then again, we haven't had the bill long enough to read all the different nuances of it."

o    SUMMARY "We're suggesting that this program can be run for 'x' and we know it's going to cost 'y.' Now, how in the world can we take something up as seriously as Children's Health Insurance and lie about the numbers? If we lie about the numbers, how do we expect the American people to believe us when we say, well, we're only doing 300% of poverty."

 
Senator Casey: (12:26 PM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H. R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "This bill, among the many other good things it does, would have a disproportionately positive impact, in my judgment, when you look at the data on rural children. Rural children increasingly rely upon Children's Health Insurance. More than one-third of all children rely on the Children's Health Insurance Program or Medicaid. One-third of rural children rely upon one of these two programs. So in this debate, it's important that we stress the broad reach of this bill as it pertains to children from across the board, across the demographic and even economic landscape."

 
Senator Coburn: (12:27 PM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

o    SUMMARY "If you sign an affidavit that you will cover and be the sponsor for a legal immigrant in this country, you ought to do that. That's what he's talking about. He's not talking about I'll do it until I can get somebody else to take care of my responsibility. Talking about it that if you sign an affidavit that you will do it...and what this bill is going to do is make permanent that people don't have to be responsible when they, in fact, sign an affidavit that they will sponsor a legal immigrant."

Senator Designate Kirsten Gillibrand was sworn in as the Junior Senator from New York.

The Senate stands in recess until 2:15 PM.    

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

 
Senator Brown: (2:21 PM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "For the third time in my Senate career, I've come to this Floor to cast a vote in favor of legislation which will enable parents to help their children when they are ill. In my opinion, there are few legislative or ethical priorities, Mr. President, more important than that. This is the third time I've advocated for CHIP on the Senate Floor. I hope, Mr. President, the third time will be a charm."

·         Spoke against the Hatch Amendment to the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "The Hatch Amendment, the 95% rule is especially for those that want to enroll legal immigrant children and pregnant women. That's a standard, Mr. President, I don't think that we can meet. No matter how hard the states try, they can't find 95% of the people that are eligible. That means too many children of legal immigrants, legal people in this country, too many pregnant women wouldn't have the insurance for their children that we should offer them in this body."

 
Senator Kyl: (2:52 PM)

·         Spoke in favor of the McConnell Amendment to the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "The amendment that Senator McConnell has offered, The Kids First Act, is very targeted and I think a much more responsible approach to the problem. It does reauthorize the Children's Health Care Insurance Program. It preserves health care coverage for millions of low-income children. It actually adds 3.1 million new children to SCHIP. It minimizes the reduction in the private coverage, the so-called crowd-out that I spoke of earlier, by targeting SCHIP funds to low-income funds, not higher-income families who may already have access to insurance. And by the way, it's offset without new tax increases or a budget gimmick like the program before us."

 
Senator Brown: (2:54 PM)

·         Responded.

o    SUMMARY "The Minority Leader filed this amendment in 2007. It wasn't a good idea then. It simply knocks too many children, these are not rich children, these are sons and daughters of people who are working who aren't making a lot of money, aren't making enough that they have health insurance or that they can afford out-of-pocket health insurance. They're working for employers that don't provide it, small businesses, some lower-income workers. I don't want to do anything, Mr. President, that takes away the eligibility of those children."

 
Senator Coburn: (2:58 PM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

o    SUMMARY "There's 5.4 million children today who don't have health insurance, whose parents don't have health insurance who are eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP today and they're not signed up. And what are we doing? We're expanding a program that's only gotten about 51% of the kids that are eligible right now signed up into the program. And we're also being dishonest about what it costs. It's actually going to cost $42 billion more than what we say it's going to cost. Nobody will deny that. So why would we not want to have something that will limit the amount of crowd-out because as we take money for kids who are now insured and put it to them through a government program, it means these same 5.4 million kids are still not going to get covered. So we haven't improved the program by increasing the eligibility. What we've done is we've just moved up the income scale."

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

 
Senator Brown: (3:17 PM)

·         Responded to Senator Coburn.

o    SUMMARY "Providing funding for outreach and enrollment, which is language originally introduced by Senators Bingaman and Frist. It's been pushed and supported by Senators Grassley and Hatch in the legislation in the last Congress. It provides incentives for states to encourage them to provide coverage for these eligible unenrolled children. We can certainly learn from Senator Coburn to do more, but this legislation really is replete with provisions to bring more children in."

 
Senator Coburn: (3:18 PM)

·         Responded.

o    SUMMARY "You know, there is a way to solve this. It's called auto-enrollment. You just write the bill. Anybody at any region under 200% who claims a deduction for children is automatically enrolled in SCHIP and Medicaid. It is not hard. We don't want to do that. Why are we doing that? Because we don't really want to help all these 5.4 million children. We don't want to do that. We got all these incentives that haven't worked in the past. We've done all these things. All you got to do is auto-enrollment. We can pass it."

 
Senator Burr: (3:19 PM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "This bill is attempting to increase the eligibility, to get a bigger slice of America eligible for government programs so that at some point the number of folks that are on government programs, Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP, V.A., and the list goes on, is well over 50% of America, and then the dye is cast. We go to a single-payer system. The government runs it. The government tells us how much we get. The government tells us where we go and the American taxpayer pays for everybody."

o    SUMMARY "Rather than focus on 5.4 million, we're focused on how we increase eligibility, how we change the income parameters. Let me just point out, New Jersey, which is grandfathered to 350% of poverty, ranks 47th in the country at enrolling children that are 100% to 200% of poverty. A state that we have allowed to be grandfathered at 350% of poverty, ranks 47th out of 50 in the United States in enrolling kids between 100% and 200% of poverty. As a matter of fact, 28% of their children are uninsured in that 100%-200% of poverty. Yet once again we're going to grandfather them and allow this incredible expansion to continue."

o    SUMMARY "This entire debate has personally been grievous to me because it has now become a partisan cheers instead of about being covering low-income, uninsured children where we could have had a wonderful bipartisan vote...To start out the year on this note does not bode well for future health care discussions, including health reform and the Medicare bill that we will be considering this fall."

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

Colloquy (Senators Whitehouse and Burr).

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

 
Senator Whitehouse: (3:50 PM)

o    SUMMARY "I would note that there would have been, by our estimates, 3.3 million children who would have been covered had the bill passed in 2007. That would have been one very good way to knock down the number of children in this country who aren't protected by health insurance."

 
Senator Burr: (3:50 PM)

o    SUMMARY "Would any of that 3.3 million been in the 100% to 200% poverty?"

 
Senator Whitehouse: (3:51 PM)

o    SUMMARY "Probably, because as I understand it, the bill contained both funds and programs for outreach that would have supported the states and their initiatives to find the children who, because their parents are moving, or for one reason or another, were eligible, but hadn't entered into these state programs."

 
Senator Burr: (3:52 PM)

o    SUMMARY "Let me suggest to the gentleman that there was the same expansion of eligibility in last year's bill. So the likelihood is that any increase in enrollment would have been spread across, not just the 100% to 200%, but all the way up to the 400%."

 
Senator Whitehouse: (3:52 PM)

o    SUMMARY "I think that the increase in enrollment would have spread wherever the program went. There are very few areas, as the Senator knows, where the level is 400% in the vast majority of the country."

 
Senator Webb: (3:57 PM)

·         Spoke on the Webb Amendment to the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "I'm very concerned about the way that this legislation is going to be funded. We all have our own issues with respect to whether tobacco should be used or not used, but to fund an entire program based on tobacco, I think, is not the way to go for a number of reasons. So I'm offering an amendment that will help offset this highly regressive 61-cent per pack increase in the cigarette tax that is being used to fund this bill. And to add on to the bill a tax on carried interest, which is the compensation that's currently received by hedge fund managers. This proposal would generate $11.2 billion in revenue over five years."

 
Senator Whitehouse: (4:06 PM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "Today, 4.1 million uninsured children are waiting for us to pass this bill. 4.1 million children who might not see a doctor this winter when they get the flu because their parents can't afford to pay out of pocket for the visit. 4.1 million children who might delay needed vaccinations or other preventive care because their parents have to buy food instead. 4.1 million children who might not get an inhaler or insulin or, heaven forbid, chemotherapy, because in this economic downturn, the money just isn't there. Who could say no to uninsured vulnerable children?"

o    SUMMARY "During the course of this discussion, some Members have tried to make this debate about illegal immigration. It's not. We should not permit the very difficult issue of illegal immigration affect this bill, to deny millions of children the health care that they badly need. That would be a grave mistake. That would be a wrong. Let me be very clear. Only children who are legally in the United States are eligible to receive coverage under Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program."

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

 
Senator Reid: (4:31 PM)

·         Propounded a UC that at 5:25 PM, the Senate resume consideration of the DeMint Amendment with 45 minutes for debate with the time equally divided and controlled, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the DeMint Amendment. That upon disposition of the DeMint Amendment, the Senate resume consideration of the Hatch Amendment with two minutes of debate equally divided and controlled. Upon disposition of the Hatch Amendment, the Senate proceed to Executive Session to consider of the nomination of Daniel K. Tarullo, the Senate vote on confirmation of the nomination, and the Senate resume legislative session (without objection).

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

 
Senator Whitehouse: (5:18 PM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "By supporting this legislation, you will enable the state programs to reach whatever that group of kids is, whether it's 5.4 million or 540,000. I don't know what the number is. 5.4 million sounds very unlikely. But even setting that question aside, the fact that we would vote against this piece of legislation in order to help those 5.4 million kids makes no sense whatsoever, because this legislation contains both the funding and the outreach tools to allow the state programs to reach those very kids."

 
Senator DeMint: (5:28 PM)

·         Spoke in favor of the DeMint Amendment #43 to the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "One of the things we want to make sure that doesn't happen is that people who have private insurance and have taken responsibility for health insurance for their family are not encouraged to drop their private insurance and to join a government Children's Health Plan...and that is what my amendment is about, is making sure that states that provide government health coverage to families over 200% of poverty have some cost-sharing arrangement to send the signal that this is not a permanent subsidy from government but a temporary bridge to help families that need some help getting health insurance for their children to get the help that they need."

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

The vote result was 60-37.

The motion to table the DeMint Amendment #43 to the Children's Health Insurance Program Improvements Act (H.R. 2) is agreed to.

The vote results will be posted here within one hour.

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

By voice vote, the Hatch Amendment #45 to the Children's Health Insurance Program Improvements Act (H.R. 2) was not agreed to.

Executive Session

The vote result was 96-1.

The nomination of Daniel K. Tarullo to be a Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is confirmed.

The vote results will be posted here within one hour.

SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2)

 
Senator Brown: (6:38 PM)

·         Spoke on the economic stimulus package.

o    SUMMARY "As we decide how to spend these tax dollars, it's imperative we consider where to spend them, or rather, on whom. These funds must create American jobs and to do that, we must ensure that federal funds are used to buy American services and American products...we have a responsibility to taxpayers to ensure that these dollars are creating jobs. Including 'buy America' requirements in the proposal would be the most effective way to ensure tax dollars are spent in the United States to create jobs here."

 
Senator Casey: (6:47 PM)

·         Spoke on the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2).

o    SUMMARY "I appreciate the fact that Senator Brown reminded us about what's been happening in our states, in our communities, as a result of this economic horror that so many families are living through. That horror and that trauma will only be increased in the months and years ahead if we don't pass this Children's Health Insurance legislation. I think it's directly related to what we're talking about here when it comes to the terrible recession so many families are living through."

o    SUMMARY "What is the United States Senate going to do when faced with the question, the stark and fundamental question, are we going to act this week to cover 4.1 million children or not? It is up or down. A lot of discussions about so-called immigration issues, which I think have been misleading. A lot of debate about numbers. But we're either going to act to do this and cover four million kids or not."

 
Senator Durbin: (7:07 PM)

·         Spoke in favor of Eric Holder's nomination to head the Justice Department.

o    SUMMARY "I have given especially close consideration to this nomination and I met privately with Eric Holder, reviewed his record, listened to his sworn testimony and I've come to the conclusion he'll be an outstanding Attorney General."

·         Performed wrap up.

·         Tomorrow --

·         There will be no Morning Business.

·         The Senate will convene at 10:00 AM, resume consideration of the SCHIP Bill (H.R. 2), proceed to debate the McConnell Amendment #40 and vote on the related amendment at 11:00 AM.

·         Votes are expected.

The Senate stands adjourned until 10:00 AM tomorrow.