Joe Barton: “Suffice it to say that all is well that ends well, and today we have a bill before us that is going to temporarily fix…”

“Suffice it to say that all is well that ends well, and today we have a bill before us that is going to temporarily fix the physician reimbursement issue. It is going to extend the SCHIP program through March of 2009. It is going to extend the special diabetes program for another year and a number of other things. These are all good things and people on both sides of the aisle support them. It shouldn't have taken all year to do these things, but it has. I want to speak very briefly about the SCHIP program. The language in the bill before us is essentially the Barton-Deal language, which Congressman Deal of Georgia, the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, and myself introduced 7 or 8 months ago to extend the existing SCHIP program for 18 months, to make sure that all children currently receiving coverage continue to receive coverage, to have a slight increase in funding so that some new enrollments could occur. It is a commonsense approach to an issue while we debate with our friends on the majority side the extent to which we want to expand or change the program.”