Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to support S. 1557, the Children's Hospital GME Support Reauthorization Act of 2013. S. 1557 reauthorizes the children's hospital graduate medical education--or CHGME--program through fiscal year 2018 at an authorization level of $300 million per year. The legislation also makes two important changes to the program. It provides for a limited expansion of the CHGME program to include children's psychiatric hospitals and other children's hospitals that have been unable--to date--to participate in the program for technical reasons. It also would allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to redistribute any remaining funding set aside for the newly-eligible hospitals that goes unused based upon quality measures. This program provides ongoing and consistent financial support to hospitals such as Children's Hospital of Los Angeles for the training of doctors who want to specialize in pediatrics. Over the years, the CHGME program has been enormously successful in reversing the significant decline in the number of pediatrician trainees across the country. Indeed, today, children's hospitals nationwide that are supported by the program train 49% of all pediatricians and 51% of all pediatric specialists. Not surprisingly, the CHGME program has a decade-long history of bipartisan support. The program was first established in 1999 and has subsequently been reauthorized on two occasions.…”