John Ensign: “We are taking it from the expansion, which is not just children. We are going to have other amendments to make sure the…”

“We are taking it from the expansion, which is not just children. We are going to have other amendments to make sure the prioritization is on low-income kids. Part of the expansion is in States where the folks being covered are not just those under 200 percent of the poverty level. The expansion of SCHIP has been part of the problem. I believe in actually covering everybody, but doing it in a way that is different than the approach in the bill. What we want to do is take the tobacco taxes and take those funds that are raised by the tobacco taxes and dedicate those funds to disease research. The budget gimmicks used in the SCHIP expansion are so phony that it is ridiculous, some of the worst I have seen around here. These gimmicks assume these folks are going away in a few years, that they are not going to be on the program at the end of the 5-year reauthorization. This is how they got the SCHIP expansion to meet pay-go requirements. But we say let's take the money and put it in a trust fund and with those real dollars that are in the trust fund, we are going to fund disease research that will help children, that will help adults, that will help all Americans.”