Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the majority whip, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, it is not a political reason if you use the time to think about what this is all about. That is what I would urge you to do.

Mr. PALLONE. I would hope that the Members on the other side of the aisle, including the ranking member, who I have a great deal of respect for, would use the time to contemplate, perhaps go to an emergency room.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act passed the House and the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. I would stress ``bipartisan'' because I listened to the gentleman from Louisiana. He neglects to mention that Republicans were at the table, Senator Grassley, Senator Hatch, and certainly a large number of Republicans who voted for this as well in the House of Representatives. The bill also has overwhelming support with the American people. Yet this is a bill that the President has been threatening to veto since this summer. I don't know what happened to the President's compassion or sense of social justice. I don't think he understands the negative impact his veto will have on the millions of children who would be denied regular visits to see the doctor because he refused to sign this bill into law. Now, let's review who stands for what. Under the bipartisan bill that the President vetoed this morning, 4 million previously uninsured low- income children, many of whom are in working families, I know there was a reference to welfare from the gentleman from Louisiana. I don't think he was referencing these kids or their families because these are working families. But 4 million previously uninsured low-income children who are in working families would get health coverage under this bill. A total of 10 million children would have their health coverage secured. Under the bipartisan bill, the vast majority of children covered are the lowest income children who are today uninsured. According to the CBO, under the bipartisan bill, about 84 percent of the uninsured children who would benefit live in families with incomes below $40,000 a year. In addition, 1.7 million uninsured children who are eligible for Medicaid but otherwise would be uninsured would gain coverage under the agreement. Most of these would likely be children living in families with incomes below $20,000 a year. Under the bipartisan bill, States would have new tools to conduct outreach and enrollments. States could use express- lane, one-stop-shopping at places like schools, community centers and hospitals to get children covered. The President, while he recently put out a regulation that would actually block schools from helping to sign low-income, uninsured children up for coverage, he put out another regulation that would force children to go an entire year, that is one whole year, without insurance coverage before their parents could sign them up for CHIP. That is 1 year of earaches, strep throat, asthma, diabetes and toothaches that would be treated in emergency rooms rather than the doctor's office. The President talked about how kids can go to the emergency room. Well, has he been to an emergency room lately? I was at one in my district last weekend. It is not a great place for a kid to visit. It is a scene of trauma. People who have overdosed on alcohol and drugs. Most emergency rooms are overwhelmed with real emergencies and have few resources to treat people who need regular family care. The President makes $400,000 a year. He is guaranteed health care for life. He has a government doctor that is at his immediate call. Yet today this President has denied millions of low-income children and working families the opportunity to get even basic health care. Working Americans understand the struggle families have to make ends meet and afford health care coverage for their children. But the President and very few, because I am not talking about all Republicans, but very few of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle appear to be the only people in America who do not understand the challenges these families face or the importance of securing affordable coverage for their children. It is a sad day, Madam Speaker, for America that the President vetoed this bill. But there is an opportunity over the next 2 weeks, because I want everyone to support this motion, but in about a week or two, we are going to have a vote on the floor. I would urge all those on the other side of the aisle who did not vote for this bill to use that time to reconsider and think about these kids when they go and cast their vote and vote to override this veto by the President. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague from Texas, and he talks about process. The fact of the matter here, this is not a process issue. These are the kids that are not insured, are eligible, and we need to cover them. The President of the United States and my colleague on the Republican side does not want to spend and provide the extra money to cover these kids that need insurance. If anything, the President's proposal and his directive would actually put more roadblocks and bureaucracy in the way with his directive that says that kids have to stay uninsured for a year, for example, before they can even get into the program. Let there be no mistake about what the President and the Republicans on the House side are trying to do today. They don't want these kids to be covered. They don't want to provide the money for them to be covered. They want to put roadblocks in the way and say they have to be out of insurance for a year. I remember back in the spring when some of my colleagues on the other side from Georgia came here with their representatives from the Georgia government, and they said that they didn't have enough money to cover the kids, that we needed more money for this program. I don't understand how any of you can come here today and say you are trying to help. You're not. I would urge my colleagues to vote for this motion.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I reserve my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I do have some additional speakers, and I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Giffords).

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez).

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, who's been an outstanding proponent of the SCHIP bill, Mr. Altmire.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the motion just considered.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday House Republicans offered a motion to recommit condemning MoveOn.org for its advertisement stating that General Petraeus had ``betrayed us.'' I'm wondering if they'll show similar outrage over statements made yesterday by conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Yesterday, Limbaugh called servicemembers who support a withdrawal from Iraq ``phony soldiers.'' Is Limbaugh serious? Is a soldier who is honorably serving our Nation in Iraq any less a soldier if he questions what appears to be a never- ending war? Last month, seven soldiers from the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division wrote an op-ed in the New York Times questioning our continued war efforts, but also stating: ``We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers we will see this mission through.'' Now, since publication of that op-ed, two of the soldiers have died. As this op-ed shows, soldiers may question the war, but that does not mean that they're any less committed to their mission. And now I wonder if Republicans who showed so much outrage towards MoveOn yesterday will hold Rush Limbaugh to the same standard. And I wouldn't hold your breath.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would, again, urge passage of this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume. I rise today to express my strong support for House Resolution 470, supporting efforts to increase childhood cancer awareness, treatment, and research. I am proud to join my colleagues across the aisle and throughout this body in support of this resolution. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, marking the time when we raise awareness of childhood cancer and the lives affected. Although cancer in children is rare, it is estimated that this year alone more than 12,000 children will be diagnosed with cancer and nearly one-fifth will die, making cancer the leading cause of disease-related deaths for children under the age of 15. House Resolution 470 reminds us that cancer occurring during childhood has harmful repercussions for a child's future well-being. Cancer compromises a child's natural defenses against other types of illnesses and destroys organs and bones. Cancer disrupts a child's life at a time when he or she should be otherwise more concerned with exploring the world and making new discoveries instead of undergoing chemotherapy or medical therapies. House Resolution 470 reminds us that more must be done to fight this devastating disease. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of those children and their families attempting to deal with such a terrible disease. I want to thank in particular the sponsor of this legislation, Representative Pryce of Ohio, because I know that she has worked so hard on this in trying to push it to the floor today. I urge all of my colleagues to do the same. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 470) supporting efforts to increase childhood cancer awareness, treatment, and research.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, once again I would urge passage of this corrections legislation. I have no further requests for time and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this resolution concerns two errors in the bill, H.R. 3580, the Food and Drug Administration Amendments of 2007. The bill has passed both the House and Senate and is currently in the process of being enrolled for delivery to the President. The resolution directs the Clerk of the House to correct two errors, both of which were made in drafting and inadvertently occurred as we all worked under pressure to complete the drafting of H.R. 3580. We were under pressure to complete that bill, as you know, before the expiration date on September 30 of PDUFA, the Prescription Drug User Fee Act. The failure to reauthorize PDUFA in time would have caused the Food and Drug Administration to send out notice of employee layoffs. I'm aware of no objection to passage of the resolution, and I would urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 217) to correct technical errors in the enrollment of the bill H.R. 3580.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, once again I would ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank my chairman, Mr. Dingell, Mr. Rangel, Mr. Stark, and all who worked, including on the Senate side, to put this bill together. It does pain me a great deal, though, to hear my Republican colleagues, and specifically the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, basically advocate for the President's veto of this legislation. And I say that because I know that 10 years ago, when we established the SCHIP program, it was bipartisan, President Clinton, Speaker Gingrich. And the fact of the matter is it was done for practical reasons because we knew there were kids, as was said by the gentleman from Louisiana, who were not getting health care on the job, but whose incomes, because their parents were working, were too high to be eligible for Medicaid. Now, all we're doing today is being as practical as we were 10 years ago. We know that there are 6 million kids, almost twice who were enrolled in the program, who are eligible for this program under the same eligibility requirements as 10 years ago who are not enrolled in the program because we don't have enough money to pay for it and we haven't had enough outreach to get them enrolled. There is nothing new here. This is the same block grant that Speaker Gingrich and President Clinton advocated 10 years ago. But practically speaking, we know that for the first time in the last 2 years the number of uninsured kids is now going up instead of going down, so we have to do something about it. And we sat down with the Republicans in the Senate, with the Democrats in the Senate and the Democrats here in the House, and we came up with a solution, which was the tobacco tax. Now, this is fully funded. And the tobacco tax is a great way to pay for it because if you tax people who are smoking and they smoke less, then we have less health problems, and it's directly related to trying to provide health insurance. So don't tell me it's not paid for. It is paid for. It's paid for in a good way. There is no change in eligibility here. We are simply trying to cover the same kids that are eligible but not enrolled. And if you go along with the President's veto of this legislation, what you're saying is that not only the kids that are not enrolled, but even those who are now in the program won't be able to get their health insurance. Shame on you for that.