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Edited on Tue Apr-01-08 10:29 AM by karynnj
that was the starting point that Kennedy used in working with Hatch. Kennedy did speak of that in 2004 (I think in Iowa). Here is a NYT article from 1997 that gives the history of how S-CHIP came about that mentions the earlier bill. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980DEFDC113CF932A2575BC0A961958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=1Here are Senator Kerry's and Kennedy's speeches in the Senate in 1996: STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS (Senate - October 01, 1996) THE HEALTHY CHILDREN FAMILY ASSISTANCE HEALTH INSURANCE ACT Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am proud to introduce legislation today, joined by my friend, colleague, and esteemed senior Senator, Ted Kennedy, to help ensure that the 10 million uninsured children in this country get the health care they need and their parents get the peace of mind they deserve. Mr. President, the fact is that most of these 10 million uninsured children have parents who work--90 percent of these uninsured children have parents who work, according to the General Accounting Office . And three out of five of these children have parents who work fulltime during the entire year.
Unfortunately, the problem of uninsured children is getting worse, not better--each year, more than 1 million additional children lose private insurance. No parent should have to choose between medicine for a sick child and food for the family. The thought of a mother and father, working hard to make ends meet, waking up in the middle of the night with a child in pain, and waiting to see if the pain passes because they cannot afford to go to the hospital, is a stark image of a national tragedy. Mr. President, American children without health care are alone in the world--we are the only Western industrialized nation that does not provide health care for every child.
I am proposing today with Senator Kennedy a voluntary subsidy program to help working families to purchase private health insurance for their children . Only families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid would be eligible to receive these vouchers. Participation in the voucher program would be voluntary. The premium subsidy would be provided on a sliding scale with families earning 185 percent or less of the poverty line receiving the full subsidy; the subsidy would phase down so that families earning more than 300 percent of the poverty line would not receive a subsidy. Cost-sharing would be limited but everyone would pay something. The proposal includes a comprehensive benefits package with a full range of the essential services needed by children . The total cost of the plan is $24 billion over 5 years and is paid for by a combination of cuts in corporate welfare and a tobacco tax increase. Although it is apparent there is no chance the plan will be enacted this year, with Congress now in its final hour before adjourning prior to the election, we are introducing it as a bill today because we want to place this issue prominently on the national agenda during the next few months preceding convening of the 105th Congress.
Mr. President, I want to discuss 2 of the 10 million compelling reasons to provide basic health insurance to children who are not covered now.
One of the first reasons is a 13-year-old student in Lynn, MA, named Costa Billias. He played football at Breed Junior High and loved the game, but said, `For the past 2 years I gave my best to football, but my mom explained that we were not insured and if I got hurt we would lose our house and everything we own to pay the hospital.' He quit the team, but he cannot
quit life. If he gets hurt doing something else, his family still stands to lose everything. In addition, I think it is wrong that Costa Billias is being denied the opportunity to play football again.
One more of the 10 million reasons we must pass this bill is the Pierce family. Jim and Sylvia Pierce were married in 1980 and live in Everett, MA. Jim was a plumber and they had three children , Leonard, Brianna, and Alyssa. In October 1993, Sylvia was pregnant with her fourth child when Jim was tragically killed on his way home from the store. In that one horrible minute her life changed forever. She not only lost her husband, but, pregnant and alone, she lost her health insurance as well. Her survivor's benefits made her income too high to qualify for long-term Medicaid, and too low to pay the $400 a month it would take to extend her husband's health plan. Sylvia said, `I've always taken good care of my children . I feed them well; I take them to the doctors immediately when they need it. All of a sudden I couldn't do that anymore.
Mr. President, in addition to the moral imperative, the scientific evidence is overwhelming that lack of health coverage is bad for children , delaying medical care or making it impossible to get. A recent study in JAMA found that children with health coverage gaps were more likely to lack a continuing and regular source of health care --even when factors such as family income, chronic illness, and family mobility were factored out. Numerous studies by university researchers and by government agencies show that the uninsured are less likely to receive preventive care (such as immunizations for children ), more likely to go to emergency rooms for their care , more likely to be hospitalized for conditions that could have been avoided with proper preventive care , and more likely to have longer hospital stays than individuals with health insurance coverage.
Mr. President, every hour we wait to take this step, another 114 children lose private health insurance. Every 30 seconds we wait, another child loses private health insurance. America's children cannot wait any longer. Families without insurance are forced to pay the full cost of medical services--an impossible burden for struggling families, one that often takes a back seat to putting food on the table and a roof over the children's heads.
Mr. President, this plan is an important, incremental step toward guaranteeing health coverage for all Americans. I urge my colleagues to support it.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is an honor to join Senator John Kerry in introducing this visionary and practical program. Senator Kerry has been a consistent leader in the Senate in fighting for children , for health care , and for working families. This initiative sets a benchmark for the next Congress and the American people. It is a proposal that is a reflection of true family values.
Every American child deserves a healthy start in life, but too many don't receive it. Seventeen industrialized countries do better at preventing infant mortality than we do. A quarter of American children do not receive basic childhood vaccines. Every day, 636 babies are born to mothers who receive inadequate prenatal care , 56 babies die before they are a month old, and 110 babies die before they are a year old.
Access to affordable health care is one of the greatest problems children face. Ten-and-a-half million children under the age of 19 have no health insurance--one in every seven American children . If it were not for the expansions of Medicaid over the past 5 years, the number would be seven million higher. Under Republican proposals to cut Medicaid, four million children would lose their coverage. Employer-based insurance coverage is eroding. Too many pregnant women--more than 400,000 a year--are uninsured, and lack access to critical prenatal care .
Almost all uninsured children are members of working families. Their parents work hard--40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. But all their hard work does not buy their children the protection they deserve. Every family should have the right to health security for their children . No parents should fear that the loss of a job or their employer's failure to provide coverage will put their children out of reach of the health care they need.
Health insurance coverage for every child is a needed step in the fight to guarantee health care for every family. The cost is affordable. The benefits are great. The opportunities for bipartisanship are substantial.
The legislation we are introducing today is a simple, practical proposal. It imposes no new government mandates on the States or the private sector. It does not substitute for family responsibility. It fosters it, instead, by assuring that every family has the help it needs to purchase affordable health insurance for their children .
Our plan will establish no massive new Federal bureaucracy. Basic guidelines and financing would come from the Federal Government, but the plan would be implemented and administered by States.
The program will make a major difference in the lives of millions of families, but its basic principles are not novel or untested. Fourteen States already have similar programs in place and running. Earlier their year, for example, Massachusetts enacted a program very similar to our proposal.
Under our plan, the Federal Government will assist all families with incomes under 300 percent of poverty to purchase health insurance for their children , if they do not already receive coverage under an existing public program. Families with incomes under 185 percent of poverty will receive a full subsidy. Families with incomes between 185 percent of and 300 percent of poverty will receive assistance on a sliding scale. Between 80 and 90 percent of all uninsured children live in families with incomes below 300 percent of poverty. Even uninsured families with higher incomes might buy coverage for their children if policies designed for children were available. Families with income under 150 percent of poverty will also receive assistance with the cost of copayments and deductibles. Similar assistance will be provided to uninsured pregnant women.
The program will be administered by States under Federal guidelines. In general, States will contract with private insurance companies to offer children's coverage to any family that wants it. Lower income families will receive assistance with the cost of coverage, but coverage will be available to all families at all income levels. Basic rules will guarantee that coverage is adequate and tailored to the special needs of children , especially the need for comprehensive preventive care .
This plan does not guarantee that every child will have insurance coverage, but it gives the opportunity to every family to cover their children at a cost the family can probably afford. It will be a giant step toward the day when every member of every American family has true health security.
The cost of a similar program has been estimated at $24 billion over 5 years. We propose to finance our plan by a combination of tobacco tax increases and closing corporate tax loopholes. The Nation currently spends close to $1 trillion per year on health care . The additional cost of this proposal is substantial, but it is a needed step toward healthier lives for millions of American children and peace of mind for their parents.
In this Congress, we made substantial progress toward improving the health care system. We turned back extreme proposals to slash Medicare and Medicaid. Working together in a bipartisan way, we were able to pass the Kassebaum-Kennedy Health Insurance Reform Act, take a significant first step toward mental health parity, and protect mothers and infants from premature discharge from the hospital. Every Democratic and Republican health plan in the previous Congress endorsed the idea of subsidizing private insurance coverage for children . This proposal should be a bipartisan health priority for the next Congress. I believe it is an idea whose time has finally come.
As to S-CHIP itself, Senator Kerry was a co-sponsor. He referenced the bill he and Kennedy had the year before in the Senate when S-CHIP was introduced:
"Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am delighted to join with my colleague, Senator Kennedy, with Senator Hatch, and others, in introducing today legislation to provide health care to the 10 million children in the United States who today do not have that care.
Last year, Senator Kennedy and I joined together with other Senators to introduce legislation to similarly provide health care to these children. Since the time that we introduced legislation a year ago, over 750,000 children under the age of 18 have lost health insurance . One child loses health insurance every 35 seconds in the United States. We are the only industrial country on the face of this planet that does not insure our children, or that does not insure, even, many of our adults.
What is extraordinary about this situation is that we are not talking about the poorest of our poor in America. The poorest of the poor get help. They have health insurance . They get Medicaid. The fact is that we are talking about 10 million children who are the children of working Americans, fully three-fifths of whom work full-time jobs, and 90 percent of whom are working at some job or another.
I visited recently at the Children's Hospital in Boston and I listened to the story of two parents who are working, both of whom are just not earning enough money in their full-time jobs to be able to pay the premiums for the expensive insurance that their sick child needs.
The fact is that over one-half of all the children in the United States who have asthma never see a doctor. One-third of all the children in the United States who have an ear problem never see a doctor. Similarly, for eye problems: As we have learned from medical experts, those problems, often undiagnosed, become chronic ailments and many times become lifetime impairments. We then pick up the cost of those impairments with special education needs, and at the back end of often substance abuse or other kinds of highly intensive, labor-intensive interventions which we could have avoided early on.
Just take the case of neonatal/prenatal care. It costs $1,000 for a year of covering a pregnant woman with early nutrition, early intervention, for pregnancy. But if a child is born underweight as a consequence of the lack of that kind of intervention, it costs $1,100 a day.
I have talked to teachers in schools who have told me the stories of young students who come into the school; they are in the classroom and they are disruptive, not because they want to be disruptive, but because they have a problem. In one particular case, a teacher told me of a child who chronically disrupted the entire class. They could not figure it out. They finally got the child to a clinic because the child had not been examined by a doctor, and they found the child had a chronic earache problem as a consequence of an infection. Antibiotics were given, the infection was cleared up, and the child became a full participant in the classroom.
Mr. President, there are countless stories like these. I want to congratulate Senator Kennedy and Senator Hatch for working together in helping to come up with a scheme to fund this, that clearly addresses other health needs of the country. When we consider the costs of our various wings of hospitals that are dedicated to pulmonary disease, to emphysema, to cancer as a consequence of smoking, we are spending billions upon billions of dollars, far in excess of the cost of this kind of program, to provide preventive care at the early outset. "
Hatch in his Speech listed the ways in which their bill was not the same as what he called Kerry/Kennedy. That reference, differentiating them shows there was some connection but that there were significant changes.
"First, I must emphasize that S. 525 is not the Kerry-Kennedy
bill from last year, S. 2186. It is a new proposal that Senator Kennedy and I wrote together. Senator Kennedy and I have both moved considerable distances to write this compromise legislation.
This bill is not an open-ended, permanent entitlement; it is a capped 5-year program, run by the States and, as such, is very similar to a proposal former House Republican Leader Bob Michel authored in 1995. "
In contrast, Hatch completely disputes that it had anything to do with Clinton - as he continues from the above sentence to say:
"Second is the assertion that this bill is part of the Clinton agenda on health care. If helping the needy is crime, then I plead guilty. But I hope I have convinced those here today that there is a big difference between Clintoncare and the Hatch-Kennedy bill.
Indeed, I am aware that some believe there is a hidden Clinton agenda to enact health care reform piece by piece, starting with kids care.
I think that is a red herring. This argument suggests to me that we should never do anything worthwhile because of the possibility that it may evolve into something bad. I agree that we do not want the huge Clinton health care mandate proposed and debated during the 103d Congress. But, this bill is not that bill--it is not even a look-alike bill.
I have tried to design a Reaganesque block grant tailored to meet a specific problem with a wide degree of flexibility for the States. Unlike the Clinton program, the CHILD Act is focused. It is fully financed; it does not establish a new Federal bureaucracy; and it does not create any new entitlements. There are no price controls and no regional alliances and no global budgets.
Another difference is that we are trying to make this a bipartisan approach right from the beginning. We have the wisdom of that national debate 2 years ago and are far wiser for it.
Let me next turn to the issue of the tobacco tax as a source of revenue for the Children's Health Insurance and Lower Deficit Act."
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