Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015 - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about children's health insurance, an issue we hear about periodically but not nearly enough and an issue that will fast become a critically important question before both bodies, the Senate especially, because of what could happen to the Children's Health Insurance Program, which we call at the State level the CHIP program, known more commonly in Washington as S-CHIP, one of the great advancements in health care in recent American history.

We can go back 25 or 50 years, and other than Medicare and Medicaid and maybe a few other examples, VA health care, children's health care has been a great success and I would say forthrightly a bipartisan success, but we need to keep it that way. I have a particular interest in this program because of the experience we have in Pennsylvania, as tens of thousands of families have benefited from the Children's Health Insurance Program that was signed into law and advocated strongly by my father when he served as the Governor of Pennsylvania. At the time Pennsylvania was a model for the country. This was the early 1990s I am talking about.

When he signed that bill into law, Pennsylvania became one of the largest States with a new Children's Health Insurance Program which then became a model for the Nation. Here is how that happened. In 1997, Congress passed the bipartisan Children's Health Insurance Program signed into law in August of 1997 by President Clinton. The original bill was cosponsored by the late Senator Ted Kennedy, from Massachusetts of course, and the Senator from Utah, still serving, Mr. Hatch.

They worked together, along with many others in a bipartisan fashion to produce important legislation for our children. Since that time this program has worked as a remarkable public-private partnership to deliver critical health care to children. So in addition to being bipartisan, it was public and private together.

Care such as well child visits, immunizations, physical and occupational therapy, home health care and medical equipment and more were all available for the first time for many families. So it helps children not only have health insurance and health coverage, but it helps them be well and to stay well over a long period of time, providing them with care they need and giving their parents something government does not do enough; it provides a measure of peace of mind to parents and to families.

In 2009, the President signed into law a bipartisan reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program. The most recent year of data indicates that CHIP covered over 8.1 million children over the course of a year. Consider that. With this program more than 8.1 million children have health care that would not have it any other way in the absence of this program.

Even with the progress we have made in providing new health insurance options in the last couple of years as a result of the Affordable Care Act, the rate of uninsured Americans overall is still over 13 percent. That is the lowest rate since 2008 but still too high. The rate of uninsured children is 9 percent, a much lower rate obviously than the overall rate but still too high.

CHIP has played an important role in increasing access to insurance for children. The Web site for the Pennsylvania program, which is www.chipcoverspakids.com, discusses several stories from Pennsylvania parents about how this Children's Health Insurance Program in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has helped one particular family, in this case, and many others. As you read the stories--here is one story. I will sum it up briefly. The CHIP program has been great.

So said one family member:

We know that this is quality insurance and we are finally able to sleep at night knowing that our kids can be seen by excellent pediatricians. I do not know what we would have done without CHIP. Now my children can play sports and go away to camp like other kids and if they get hurt, CHIP is there for them.

So said a parent. That is probably the best summation or the best recitation of all of the reasons it is so important to make sure we preserve the Children's Health Insurance Program and preserve the funding for it and preserve any strategy that will ensure that children have the health care they need.

So CHIP is always going to be there for those kids. That is what we need to make sure that we hold on to. I, similar to so many here and many in both parties, have consistently advocated for the Children's Health Insurance Program. I am pleased it has been authorized through fiscal year 2019. However--this is why I am standing here today. However, we were able only to secure funding through 2015. So the program is reauthorized to 2019 but funded only through fiscal year 2015.

That deadline is approaching. Now is the time to act, again in the right bipartisan way, to preserve the Children's Health Insurance Program. It is time to make sure we ensure that CHIP will continue to be funded through the authorization, at a minimum, through fiscal year 2019.

Senator Rockefeller, one of the great champions of this program over many years now, decades literally, introduced legislation last week that I wholeheartedly support. That is an understatement. There is not a Senator in this Chamber who should not support his legislation, the CHIP Extension Act of 2014, S. 2461.

The legislation extends funding for CHIP through fiscal year 2019, bringing the funding in line with the authorization. I cannot stress enough the need to pass this legislation this year, pass this 2014 legislation that deals with this 2015 problem. State budget cycles are such that if we wait until next year, when the funding is about to expire, we will be jeopardizing health insurance for millions of American children.

States need time to plan their budgets and cannot operate under the uncertainty of a funding threat to such an important program. I thank Senator Rockefeller for his tireless commitment to the Children's Health Insurance Program over many years--as I said, over several decades. I thank him for his work in introducing this legislation.

I urge all of my colleagues in both parties to support Senator Rockefeller's legislation, the CHIP Extension Act of 2014, S. 2461, to make sure children's health insurance will always be there for the children who are covered by that program.

In conclusion, this is very simple. We have people in both parties who have spent a lot of their careers saying how much they care about children. They give speeches, they campaign, they talk about kids. We all talk about kids in very positive ways. That is wonderful. But the test is how we act and what actions we take. That usually means how we vote. So if someone votes for this bill, they can stand and say they have taken a substantial step in the direction of ensuring that children will have the health care they need. If they do not, and they vote against it, I do not think they can say that.

If someone votes against it, I think they have to have a substitute for it, some measure that will provide the same coverage for the same number of children by a different method. If they cannot come up with that, they cannot stand and say they are for kids. They cannot stand and say they care about our children and their future.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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