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Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendments to H.R. 976, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007

Floor Speech

Date: Sept. 25, 2007
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Health and Health Care


PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF SENATE AMENDMENTS TO H.R. 976, CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - September 25, 2007)

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, today's bill certainly does not do enough for America's children; but even too little is too much for President Bush, who seems intent on doing for America's children what he did as Governor for the children of Texas, condemning more and more of them to suffer without health insurance.

As Governor, Mr. Bush refused to lead for Texas children. Our children's health insurance was late, very late. And once we got it, he did all he could to see that as few children as possible were covered, even though the Federal Government was picking up almost 75 cents of every dollar of the bill. Texas has actually refused about $1 billion of Federal money to help our children. And by insisting on such neglect from the start, Mr. Bush has ensured that Texas has the proud record of being number one of all the 50 States in having the highest percentage of children with no health insurance.

Now in alliance with the nicotine peddlers opposing this bill, once again President Bush's greatest concern is that too many children will get insurance coverage. He actually demands that some children must wait an entire year with no insurance at all before they are eligible for CHIP coverage.

Why doesn't the child of a waitress, the child of a construction worker, the child of one of the many workers at a small business that can't afford to provide health insurance to their employees, why doesn't that child deserve a healthy start in life? Painful earaches, a strep throat, a cavity, they deserve swift treatment, not waiting. As President Bush so disdainfully said last month, just take them to the emergency room. It's that kind of indifference, combined with his record in Texas, that demonstrates indifference to the needs of our children and their health insurance as nothing new for our President. But if he prevails today, the number of children who will suffer without adequate health insurance will be even bigger than Texas.

He calls this approach compassionate conservatism. I think most Americans would just call it ``cheatin' children.''

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