Joe Barton: “Madam Speaker, we're here today to have another debate about SCHIP, another incidence of where we have a bill that's…”

“Madam Speaker, we're here today to have another debate about SCHIP, another incidence of where we have a bill that's come over from the Senate slightly different than came from the House. In the case of this SCHIP bill, I don't recall there being a hearing on it. I don't recall there being a hearing last year before we had the vote. So, let us simply say from the Republican perspective that we're very supportive of continuing the State Children's Health Insurance Program. We do think that it should be limited to families that are under 200 percent of poverty. We do think this is a children's health program. It ought to be for children. And we do think that there should be a verification to make sure that the program benefits go to citizens of the United States. None of those things are in this bill. So we would oppose the bill and hope at the appropriate time the House would also oppose it.”