Thursday, March 22, 2007

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on State Children's Health Insurance Program
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Mr. President, I am delighted to come to the floor and join in support of the amendment offered by Senator Chambliss and myself with regard to the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program was begun in 1997. At that particular time I was chairman of the board of education in the State of Georgia. I applauded the Federal Government for providing this asset and this benefit to our States.

For the benefit of those who aren't familiar, the SCHIP program is a Medicaid Program, but unlike Medicaid today, it is a block grant, it is not an entitlement. Specific funds are block-granted to the States for the purpose of providing affordable health insurance to children in poverty.

That is the way the program began. As years have gone by, States have chosen to elect to ask for waivers from Washington to expand the coverage beyond children. Meritoriously, some States have asked to cover pregnant mothers in poverty under the SCHIP program. I would be the first person to tell you that is an appropriate appropriation of funds and the intent of the bill.

However, other States have chosen to add adults who do not have children to coverage under SCHIP, the result of which has compromised the program and taken money that was intended to go to children and sent it to adults.

By way of example, my State of Georgia runs out of SCHIP money this month. We do not provide any SCHIP benefits to anybody who is not a child. Our eligibility threshold is 235 percent of poverty. So it is exactly as prescribed originally. But because we are a growth State and in addition took on the children from Katrina, we have run out of money early, because we had an increase in the number of people in our State using and taking advantage of SCHIP.

There are other States that have used their money up by adults consuming it under this program. What Senator Chambliss and I have done is simply said this: If you are going to include adults in the Children's Health Insurance Program, which is a Medicaid program, then the reimbursement to those States by the Federal Government for the cost for children ought to be the enhanced amount which Congress passed in 1997, which is about 70 percent of the cost. But if you are going to include adults, that match ought to be the 63-percent Medicaid match, not the enhanced match that was put in to attract people in the first place to provide children's health insurance. Then you take that differential and you put it into a reserve fund, and offer States the opportunity to enhance their children's health insurance by including dental and/or mental health benefits.

We know from our experience with young children in poverty that early prevention of dental disease and good dental health provides a lifetime for those children of healthy teeth, a lifetime of absence of dental disease, and a saving of untold millions of dollars in this country.

So what Senator Chambliss and I have brought to the floor is very simply this premise: If you pass a State Children's Health Insurance Program, shouldn't it go to the benefit of children's health? If you decide to include adults, why should the Medicaid match be any greater than it is for adults anyway? And if you create additional funds by making this differentiation, should not those funds go to the two areas which are most important in terms of children's health, dental and mental health?

I submit this is a thoughtful amendment. It is affordable because it is budget neutral. It takes the SCHIP program back to where it was intended, for children. It does not punish a State that includes adults under the Medicaid program, but it requires them to go back to the regular Medicaid match, not the enhanced match that was created for children's health insurance.

If we adopt this amendment, more children will have healthier lives and children in poverty will continue to get the benefit of a wise and beneficial program this Congress passed in 1997.