Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would repeat that unanimous consent request.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Price. (Mr. PRICE of Georgia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to another distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, does that mean we discuss the reservation now?

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Member from New Jersey, Congressman Garrett.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to recapitulate the debate as I see it today and start off, as I've already said, with what the Republicans are for. We are for reauthorization of the SCHIP program. This program has been in existence for 10 years. It is a block grant program between the Federal Government and the States where we spend approximately $5 billion each year to help States provide health care and health insurance for low-income and near-low-income children in their States. Some States have received waivers to provide health insurance for adults and for children that are not really in the low income. We, on the Republican side, support reauthorization of the straightforward SCHIP program. We believe that SCHIP should be for children. A Republican substitute, which was not made in order at the Rules Committee last evening, would limit SCHIP to children; that is, individuals in this country that are under 19 years of age or under. We believe that SCHIP should be for low-income and near low-income children. The Republican substitute, again, allowed SCHIP eligibility for up to 200 percent of poverty. We believe that SCHIP should be for citizens of the United States and legal residents of the United States who have been here at least 5 years. We believe that SCHIP should be funded without cutting senior citizens' health care, so the Republican substitute had no cuts in Medicare for our senior citizens. We also believe that we should fund SCHIP without tax increases. The Republican substitute had no tax increases to fund our SCHIP reauthorization. The problems with the pending bill before us have become almost too numerous to mention. But just to go through some of them, first of all, the pending bill changes SCHIP from a block grant program for a limited duration of time to an open-ended entitlement. It has authorized such sums, and there is no time limit on the bill before us. It removes the limitation on income at the Federal level. If a State chose to certify that millionaires were eligible for SCHIP, as far as we can tell, there is no restriction on covering millionaires, if a State chooses to make that certification. There are tax increases in the Democratic-sponsored bill. There is a tobacco tax increase that CBO scores at least $52 billion. And there is a cut in Medicare that CBO scores over a 10-year period at $157 billion. While there is disagreement among my friends on the majority side about this requirement, there are sections of the pending bill that removes the requirement that was put in place several years ago that States have to certify the citizenship of eligible citizens for SCHIP. Of the 465-page bill that was produced in the Energy and Commerce Committee last week, three-fourths of that bill does not deal with children. The Democratic bill is not just about the children. According to the CBO score that we just received today, the pending bill before us in the SCHIP program, by expanding eligibility requirements, would add an additional 1.1 million children, and by adding enrollment within existing eligibility, another 1 million. The SCHIP bill that the Democrats are putting before us, according to the CBO, adds 2.1 million children in the SCHIP categories, so that all the other money and all the other things that they are doing, it is not about the children. It is about a lot of other things. So, I have great respect for the people that are trying to reauthorize SCHIP. I know that at some time this fall, some time in September or maybe in October, we will have a bipartisan effort to reauthorize and send to the President an SCHIP bill that he will sign. But this is not that bill. This bill won't come up in the Senate. This bill won't come up in conference between the House and the Senate in all probability. This bill will be voted on one time, and that is sometime this evening. And then it will just sit there. So I would rather, as Chairman Dingell and I talked about back in November, the day after the election when I called to congratulate him on becoming the new chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, I would have rather we spent this spring working on a bipartisan basis to come to an agreement on what we could agree on and bring before this body a bipartisan bill on SCHIP. That has not happened. This bill was presented to the Energy and Commerce Committee at 11:36 last Tuesday evening and the markup was scheduled the next day at 10 a.m. It was presented to the Rules Committee this morning at 12:30 a.m. It was reported out of the Rules Committee at approximately 2:30 a.m. this morning with no amendments and with self-executing changes that nobody had seen, until we had time to look at it this morning. There have been no amendments on either side; not just on our side, but on their side. So the only people that really know what is in the bill, and the only people that really have input into the bill, are those people on the majority side that are working behind the scenes in the dark of night to craft this bill. Mr. Speaker, I hope we vote ``no'' on the bill. I hope we vote ``yes'' on the motion to recommit. I hope eventually we will get in a bipartisan mode, work with our friends on the other side of the body, work with the President of the United States, and send to the President some time this fall a bipartisan SCHIP reauthorization bill that is just about the children. Mr. Speaker, today the Democratic majority will make claims that they support reauthorizing the SCHIP program and, by implication, that Republicans do not. I, for one, fully support reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program. I also believe we should ensure that the program is covering the population it was intended to serve, and that's low-income children who don't have health insurance. It isn't for adults or for bureaucrats who think adults should pretend to be children. It isn't for men and women making $100,000 salaries. And it shouldn't be an incentive to pull families out of private health insurance coverage and into a public welfare program. States have used the gaping loopholes in the current SCHIP program to expand coverage to include adults and people with the kinds of salaries that are still a dream to most working people. Our friends on the majority think those are blessings, not problems, and that explains why they've written legislation that makes the list of blessings longer instead of shorter. Their bill is the first giant leap towards government-run, universal health care since Hillarycare collapsed under the weight of its own bureaucracy and deception. More bureaucracy? They're for it. More welfare? They're for it. Rationing health care? They're for it. A blank check? They're for it. In reality, the check isn't exactly blank. The CBO indicates that the cost of this Democratic welfare bill will top $200 billion, and that's only for Federal taxpayers. The States' share of SCHIP will cost the state taxpayers another $300 billion. The majority would spend hundreds of billions of dollars saying that they are trying to cover low-income children who don't have insurance. That's not what CBO says. According to the Congressional Budget Office, of the newly eligible individuals, 60 percent already had private health insurance coverage. Democrats say they are not raising the eligibility levels for SCHIP in this bill. They fail to mention that they allow states to determine income and they also do away with the block- grant nature of the program by providing states swollen Federal matching funds, even for families making above $200,000 a year. Now, some will say I've got it all wrong, but if I'm wrong and they're right, show me. I challenge my friends on the majority to point to the place in the bill where that would be prohibited. Further evidence that this bill is not about low-income children is that their bill actually allows for bonus payments to states if they eliminate asset tests. It looks like they do want welfare for the rich, and the richer, the better. I ask, should a millionaire's child be on SCHIP or Medicaid? I don't think the American people believe so, but the majority's bill encourages it. Yesterday, on the floor some members spoke about how this bill would pay for services for illegal immigrants. With no true way to refute that assertion the majority, in the managers' amendment that was released after midnight this morning, added a new section that states that no Federal funding can go towards paying for care for illegal immigrants. That was a nice restatement of current law, but it does not change the fact that this bill eliminates the requirement that States verify a person's citizenship before they are enrolled. If we don't verify citizenship, this new section is meaningless. The bill even eliminates the 5-year waiting period that legal immigrants must wait before being enrolled in Medicaid, effectively inviting more illegal immigration. During the morning session, member after member of the majority rose to say that this bill is about children. I ask my colleagues to show me where in this bill limits this Children's Health Program to children. They can't, because the bill will continue the discredited practice of siphoning off money from children's health care to buy health care for adults. We had amendments filed at the Rules Committee to ensure that SCHIP dollars go toward children, not adults, but these amendments were banned. The majority also says this isn't kids versus senior citizens, but Democrats pay for their enormous expansion by cutting $200 billion from Medicare. The Democratic bill makes a particular target of the senior citizens who picked Medicare Advantage, and takes over $150 billion away from them. That means more than 8 million of our seniors will have their choice in health care coverage sharply restricted. This bill disproportionately harms rural and low-income Medicare beneficiaries in particular since it cuts payments in these areas so drastically that plans will be driven out of these markets. The draconian cuts that the Democrats expect the Medicare Advantage program to take will obliterate the benefit. Again, no wonder the Democrats kept this bill away from the public eye. It is hard to explain to seniors why you are cutting their benefits. These plans are an important option for low-income and minority beneficiaries--57 percent of enrolled beneficiaries have incomes less than $30,000. These plans can reduce cost-sharing relative to traditional Medicare. These plans also offer better access to care-- more than 80 percent of plans provide coverage for hospital stays beyond the traditional Medicare benefit, and more than 75 percent cover routine eye and hearing tests. Over 98 percent of beneficiaries can enroll in a plan offering preventive dental benefits. These are our most vulnerable seniors. Yes, the Democrats would cut their benefits to pay for the higher income children and adults. They made this decision with no legislative hearings and developing the bill behind closed doors. My friends on the majority claim that they have had seven hearings on this. I would like to set the record straight that the Energy and Commerce Committee held one hearing on SCHIP back in February to discuss the general program, and did not discuss anything that is incorporated in this bill. They did not even invite the people who administer SCHIP at the Department of Health and Human Services to testify. This bill was written in secret, delivered at midnight, and then rewritten from 1 to 3 a.m. this morning. We have had little time to examine this bill, and we have found glaring weaknesses, I urge all members to be very cautious about what you are voting for because the rhetoric of the authors of the bill doesn't match the substance. The majority adjourned the Full Committee markup without disposing of a single amendment or reporting the bill. The rules Committee allowed no amendments in order. We have had more Committee process in this Congress on bills naming post offices. It should come as no surprise that the majority wants to ram this through with no public process provided and no changes allowed. They don't want people to know what's in it, and they certainly don't want people to change it. They claim that they have to do this because the program will expire. They have had 8 months to reauthorize the program since the day that Chairman Dingell and I agreed that SCHIP was to be a high priority in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Where have the Democrats been? They claim that this is of the highest priority, but yet they sat on it until they could create an artificial crisis and then blame Republicans for daring to read their bill. I question why they would treat the reauthorization of SCHIP as a last-minute concern. I feel it's important to note that SCHIP is only part of the Democrats' bill, which also is laden with attacks on Medicare and Medicaid. The legislation pits children against the elderly. It was brought here today out of the night, when no one was looking. I urge Members to vote against this bad bill so we can reauthorize this program in a responsible, transparent, and open way that the powerful Democrat leadership promised to conduct the business of the Nation.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I would like to yield to my distinguished chairman for any remarks he cares to make. How are the Tigers doing in the American League? What are his plans for the August break? If we can't talk about substantive issues because the majority is embarrassed to hear the answer, maybe we can discuss something else.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, it's not David Obey. I am going to yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman, out of respect for the chairman's courtesies.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. That is not in order or it is in order?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. How much time do I have left, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I would ask my distinguished chairman, who is the dean of the House, who has served in this body over 50 years, who will go down in its history as one of the most effective Members of the entire 200-plus years of the Congress, if the current process that we are apparently going to use on the SCHIP bill once we get through the Agriculture appropriation bill---- Point of Order

Mr. BARTON of Texas. But broader policy issues can be addressed.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. With all due respect, I think that does pertain to the subject at hand.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I understand the rules that we are operating under, and I am totally supportive of Mr. Gingrey's amendment on the Ag appropriations bill. I listened with interest to my committee chairman, Mr. Dingell, earlier when he rose to speak about the process in the Energy and Commerce Committee. He didn't talk about the Gingrey amendment. He didn't talk about anything dealing with the Ag appropriations. So I am simply trying to get some information from him about what he spoke of, and I think the rules of the Energy and Commerce Committee require a 36-hour advance notice, and we weren't given that 36-hour notice on that bill.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. And I think the chairman knows it.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. We have the utmost respect for each other, and that is sincere, and there is nothing artificial about that. Mr. Chairman, is it not true that the bill that was marked up or attempted to be marked up in your committee last week was given to the minority at 11:36 p.m. last Tuesday evening? Point of Order

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I appreciate the chairman's courtesy. Mr. Chairman, I think the majority is embarrassed to have the question answered. I think the majority knows that we were not given the bill within the 36-hour window. We weren't even given it within a 12-hour window.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I understand the rules, Mr. Chairman. I am going to try to comply with the rules. I support the Gingrey amendment just like I supported the McHenry amendment. I also believe that we should use as close an approximation of an open and fair process on the SCHIP reauthorization as we are using on the pending appropriations process; and I am informed by my staff that the SCHIP bill, which was 465 pages in length, was presented to minority staff at 11:36 p.m. last Tuesday evening; and I would like the distinguished chairman of the full Energy and Commerce Committee to indicate to me if that is a true statement.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words in support of the McHenry amendment.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, I need an answer to this question, and I am at a loss about how to get that answer. I listened to my chairman explain his position. I would hope that we could give him a chance to respond to a few simple questions about what he just told the body. So my question is, did we get the bill within 36 hours?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Then, Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words on the Gingrey amendment.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Chairman.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Chairman, isn't it within the rules of the House while debating a pending question to include references to extraneous material?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I spoke earlier on the second degree amendment of Mr. McHenry. Am I allowed at this time to seek recognition to speak on the original amendment of Mr. Gingrey?