Thread: The CHAMP Act (SCHIP)

[Congressional Record: September 20, 2007 (Extensions)]
[Page E1946-E1947]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr20se07-52]


H.R. 3162:--THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH AND MEDICARE PROTECTION ACT

______


HON. ANDER CRENSHAW

of florida

in the house of representatives

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my displeasure
with H.R. 3162--The Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act
(CHAMP). The CHAMP Act would expand the existing State Children's
Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by giving nearly 5 million children
who come from middle-income families access to free healthcare. This
proposal pays for this expansion by cutting 3 million senior citizens'
access to Medicare. This legislation would nearly double the 6.6
million children who are currently enrolled in the SCHIP program.

In my home state of Florida, the current SCHIP program level covers
children in families who earn up to 200 percent above the poverty
level, which amounts to a $41,200 annual income for a family of four. I
support the SCHIP program in its current form. However, I cannot
support an over-expansion of the program that uses hard-earned tax
dollars to provide free healthcare to children and adults who come from
middle-income families that make 300 to 400 percent of the federal
poverty level.

The CHAMP Act is nothing more than a veiled effort to develop a
single-payer healthcare system. In order to pay for this gross
expansion of socialized medicine, this proposal would cut Medicare
funds for 9,746 seniors who live in the Fourth Congressional District
of Florida and are currently enrolled in the Medicare Advantage
Program. I believe that my constituents would be unsupportive of any
measure that compromises healthcare to the elderly in an attempt to
give free healthcare to middle-class children and adults who were
already covered by private health insurance plans. Finally, the funding
mechanism for this expansion incorporates an increase in the federal
cigarette tax from 39 cents to 84 cents per pack and increases taxes on
many other forms of tobacco products.

In the Fourth Congressional District of Florida, 27,416 families, or
31 percent of all families with children under the age of 18, are
already eligible for either Medicaid or SCHIP under current law.
Despite this fact, the Medicare cuts to seniors are exacerbated by the fact that the CHAMP Act would cover individuals up to the age of 25.

Once again, the very nature of the program, which is intended to
provide medical care to children, is compromised by the expansion plan
to cover young adults as well.

In addition to all the concerns I mentioned above, I was unable to
support this legislation due to several additional concerns I had
during the consideration of this legislation. First of all this bill
was clouded in secrecy until hours before the House of Representatives voted on the bill.

Also, the proposal authorizes a one-month waiting period for a motorized scooter even if a doctor determined the scooter was medically
necessary, and reduces the amount of time that the government would
rent oxygen equipment to seniors from 36 months to only 13 months.

Finally, the CHAMP Act, in its current form, provides free healthcare to illegal immigrants. This complete disregard for existing law will inevitably aggravate the existing illegal immigration problem.

This legislation was an erratic attempt to re-authorize the State
Children's Health Insurance program while creating an open-ended
entitlement program that moves us further away from providing benefits
to those most in need.

Part of FAIR update rec'd via email

I called my house and senators a couple of weeks ago and told them that I did not want one dollar of my hard earned tax dollars to go to fund anything for people in this country illegally. If we didn't have to pay for all the health care for illegals then we could give our seniors better health care. I'm so sick of our congress. Just sick of them.