On the recordNovember 30, 2016
I have no further speakers and I am prepared to close if the gentleman would like to close. I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank my colleagues for their interest in children. I hear some of the speakers stand up and say they are really interested in kids, yet they oppose the CHIP program. They talk about cutting back the help to children. Now, the problem here is that if you are talking about cures, and you are going to create a magnificent cure that costs $80,000, if you don't provide Medicaid, the children who are poor in this country aren't going to get access to that cure. That is a cure for rich people who could pay it out of their clippings on their bonds and their stock. The EPSDT program, which is the program that covers kids, the President-elect has put in the charge of that a woman from Indiana who testified against it. This is the benefit that ensures sick kids will get cures. Now, you are setting in motion something here for pharmaceutical companies to find a way to take as much money out of the system as they can with every drug they can put out there, and you are, at the same time, moving in the direction of making it impossible for poor children to be taken care of in this country.…
