David Obey: “At a time when high unemployment is causing many Americans to lose their jobs and their job-related health coverage…”

“At a time when high unemployment is causing many Americans to lose their jobs and their job-related health coverage, State fiscal crises are leading States to cut back health coverage, Medicaid and SCHIP programs. According to the Kaiser Commission, 49 of the 50 States have implemented or are planning to implement cutbacks in Medicaid during fiscal year 2003. It is estimated that adoption of those cutbacks will lead to the elimination of health coverage for 1.7 million people. Many of them will be children. This amendment would simply provide a 1 percentage add-on to the Federal assistance to every State for their Medicaid programs. To receive that additional aid, States would have to refrain from any further cutbacks in eligibility for children under both Medicaid and SCHIP and restore eligibility for children to the rules that prevailed on July 1, 2001. We would pay for the amendment by simply reducing the size of the tax cut for persons who make more than $1 million a year, from $88,000 to $72,000. So the choice is simple. If you want to keep children on the health care rolls, if you want to make sure they are not knocked off the health care rolls in order to finance supersize tax cuts for people who make more than a million dollars, you will vote for this amendment.”