Tom Price: “I thank the gentlelady again for that perspective. And I just want to highlight something that you mentioned, and that…”

“I thank the gentlelady again for that perspective. And I just want to highlight something that you mentioned, and that is that there are proposals here in the House and in Congress to make this program mandatory, part of that entitlement mentality that exists on the other side of the aisle, and to increase the eligibility for this mandatory program up to 400 percent of the poverty level; you mentioned that is about $82,000 for a family of four. This chart demonstrates that the percent of children who would be covered up to 200 percent, which is what has been the original guidelines for the SCHIP program and what we believe ought to be appropriate at this point, is 50 percent of the kids will be covered in a Federal-State program. If you go up to 300 percent, then it gets to 77 percent of the children. If you go up to 400 percent of the poverty level, you get nearly 90 percent of children in a Federal health care program. And that's what sheds light on the real issue here, the real issue being who ought to be in charge of health care for our Nation's children and for our Nation's families, and for individual people all across this Nation. We believe it ought not be the Federal Government, I think that that's fair to say. And the other side clearly believes that this is the next step, to allow them to have the Federal Government control health care.”