Joe Barton: “I want to recapitulate the debate as I see it today and start off, as I've already said, with what the Republicans are…”

“I want to recapitulate the debate as I see it today and start off, as I've already said, with what the Republicans are for. We are for reauthorization of the SCHIP program. This program has been in existence for 10 years. It is a block grant program between the Federal Government and the States where we spend approximately $5 billion each year to help States provide health care and health insurance for low-income and near-low-income children in their States. Some States have received waivers to provide health insurance for adults and for children that are not really in the low income. We, on the Republican side, support reauthorization of the straightforward SCHIP program. We believe that SCHIP should be for children. A Republican substitute, which was not made in order at the Rules Committee last evening, would limit SCHIP to children; that is, individuals in this country that are under 19 years of age or under. We believe that SCHIP should be for low-income and near low-income children. The Republican substitute, again, allowed SCHIP eligibility for up to 200 percent of poverty. We believe that SCHIP should be for citizens of the United States and legal residents of the United States who have been here at least 5 years. We believe that SCHIP should be funded without cutting senior citizens' health care, so the Republican substitute had no cuts in Medicare for our senior citizens. We also believe that we should fund SCHIP without tax increases.”