Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007

Floor Speech

MEDICARE, MEDICAID, AND SCHIP EXTENSION ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - December 19, 2007)

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Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, it has become clear, not only to my colleagues in Congress, but also to the American people, that the intransigence of President Bush and his supporters in the House and Senate have made it difficult to advance long-needed bills to improve Medicare and expand the Children's Health Insurance Program.

The bill we are considering today in no way reflects negotiations with the Senate on the CHAMP Act that the House approved with a bi-partisan majority on August 1st, and the Senate's Medicare and SCHIP priorities. Rather, it is a skinny health extenders package that generally extends some provisions in current law for only 6 months.

Shoring up Medicare from years of neglect under the Republican Congress and expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program to cover 10 million low-income children are top priorities for me and the New Democratic Majority in Congress. That is why the House approved the CHAMP Act of 2007 to eliminate the scheduled Medicare physician payment cuts for the next 2 years and expand the Children's Health Insurance Program to cover 10 million low-income children nationwide. The only reason that the legislation we approved in August to improve the Medicare and SCHIP programs has not been signed into law is because President Bush and his allies in Congress oppose it.

There are several provisions of importance back home that I wish to recognize. We were able to keep in the health extenders bill a moratorium on cuts to school-based Medicaid services that the Administration has proposed. We have included a 6-month extension of a wage-reclassification program in the Medicare program, and have provided funding to extend the Special Diabetes Program for research, treatment and prevention of diabetes through September 30, 2009.

Unfortunately, imperative improvements to the Medicare program have been dropped from the bill. Improvements approved in the House in August include mental health parity for seniors, making prevention more accessible by eliminating co-pays and deductibles for preventative services like mammograms and colonoscopy screenings, and expanding programs that help low-income seniors pay for their health care and prescription drugs.

The Children's Health Insurance expansion that has been dropped from the bill would have extended children's health insurance to enroll 6 million kids that are currently eligible for the program and not yet enrolled. That's in addition to the 6 million low-income children already receiving health care under the SCHIP program nationwide, including 55,000 kids in my home state of Michigan whose parents make between $20,535 and $41,300 a year.

I urge my colleagues to support the short-term extensions in the legislation before us today, and to join me in addressing long-needed reforms to Medicare and SCHIP in the new year.

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