Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.
For more than 10 years, Congress has had to temporarily fix the flawed sustainable growth rate, SGR, nearly 20 times since it was enacted. Well, today is the last time I will have to talk about the broken SGR. The House has come together to fix it once and for all.
This bill is the result of a lot of hard work by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees and our leadership. Many of our Members have made important contributions to this bill, and I want to thank them all for being so diligent.
This bill not only repeals the SGR, it replaces it with a reformed system that pays providers based on quality and value. It rewards health outcomes. It allows providers to give more focus to their patients, and most importantly, it provides stability and predictability to the Medicare Program for years to come. This is good for doctors, and it is good for seniors.
This bill also extends critical funding for programs that improve the health and welfare of millions of children, families, and seniors. It makes permanent the qualified individual program which helps low-income seniors pay their Medicare part B premiums.
It makes permanent the Transitional Medical Assistance program, which allows low-income families to maintain their Medicaid coverage for up to 1 year as they transition from welfare to work.
It includes $8 billion in funding for community health centers, the National Health Service Corps, and teaching health centers. This funding will help serve 28 million patients, and all three, together, strengthen access to primary and preventative health care in communities throughout America.
The bill includes a fully funded 2-year extension of CHIP, maintaining all of the improvements in the Affordable Care Act, but this is not just a 2-year extension; it is a robust extension. It keeps the promise made to States by maintaining the 23 percent bump in Federal matching rates and ensures that States, in turn, keep their promise to CHIP kids by leaving maintenance of effort requirements for child enrollment through 2019 untouched.
This bill is not perfect. I wish my Republican colleagues would have agreed to fund CHIP for 4 years. I also remain concerned about the provisions that affect Medicare beneficiaries, but such is the nature of compromise.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud of the work of my committee and of both of our leaderships. This agreement took courage from both sides, but what we have accomplished is truly significant. It is balanced and a thoughtful product, and I urge Members to support it.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself my 30 seconds remaining.
I want to recognize one person in particular, Ira Burney, a career civil servant who, for more than 30 years, has worked tirelessly on Medicare issues at CMS. There is not one Medicare bill in this time that he has not been a part of. His hard work and technical knowledge have been instrumental in supporting our work here in Congress.
So I want to thank Ira and all those on both sides of the aisle who worked so hard to make this day possible. This is an important and incredibly
significant bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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