Medicare is a critical source of health insurance for millions of America’s seniors. Yet because of demographic changes like the coming retirement of the Baby Boom generation, the program needs to be strengthened so it can continue to serve the needs of older Americans and the disabled.

On Friday, the President sent Congress legislation that includes commonsense solutions to address some of the challenges facing Medicare. It includes limits on frivolous medical liability lawsuits - which drive up health care costs and have caused good doctors to limit their medical practices in places like my home state of Kentucky. We should use this opportunity to show the American people we can work together and create a bipartisan solution to secure the future of the Medicare program while implementing reforms that decrease costs and improve coverage.

Happy Valentine’s Day! As we go about our busy day enjoying tasty treats with friends and loved ones, admiring beautiful bouquets sent by admirers, or preparing gifts or special meals to celebrate Cupid’s special day, I hope you’ll all take a moment to remember that February is American Heart Month and today is “Go Redâ€? day on Capitol Hill.

For those who don’t know, cardiovascular disease is our nation’s No.1 killer. Since 1963 Congress has required the president to proclaim February “American Heart Monthâ€? to help encourage Americans to join the battle against these diseases. The Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues is encouraging Members of Congress and staff to wear red on Valentine’s Day as part of the National Wear Red Day campaign. This is the first time that the House of Representatives has officially participated in ‘Go Red’ Day and we are excited that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will participate and wear red today to help bring attention to a disease that causes one death every minute.
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One year ago, we learned about the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Our military/civilian doctors and nurses are outstanding. My concern has been with the leadership of this department, who were starving for years the base operations and other essential services of this premier medical facility.

I visit Walter Reed and Bethesda repeatedly, and constantly ask them what they need. They were intimidated by this civilian leadership.

Almost two-thirds of our amputees receive care at Walter Reed, yet we had to fight the department for years to get the amputee center built. We provided millions of dollars for maintenance costs, yet the department resisted our efforts to maintain and modernize medical facilities. These aren’t problems with funding, these are policy problems, and they are intolerable.
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Week after week, working people are marching to the ballot boxes in record numbers. Their votes are one of the many ways working families are standing up to change America, and the stakes are high. The economy is stacked against working people — friends and families are losing their homes, retirement security is an oxymoron, and millions of Americans are one accident away from a healthcare disaster.

This anguish wasn’t created overnight — our economy has been heading in the wrong direction for more than 30 years. Over those three decades workers’ productivity has increased by about 75 percent, but workers’ wages are frozen right where they were in 1973. Workers are producing more but paid less, and we’re stuck with the widest income and wealth gap of any industrialized nation.

When George W. Bush moved into the White House, he put our descent into inequality into overdrive. During his “reign,â€? we’ve lost more than three million good manufacturing jobs, poverty has increased 25 percent, the price of gasoline has risen from $1 a gallon to $3 a gallon, forty-seven million of us are without health insurance, and we’re almost bankrupt from financing tax breaks that should never have been granted, and a war that should never have been started. Read the rest of this entry »

The State of the Union is an opportunity for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) and all Americans to consider where we are as a country, where we want to go, and how to best get there. It is important to share our priorities which not only affect Hispanics, but our nation on the whole. It is our hope that by drawing attention to these issues, we can work with our Congressional colleagues and the Administration.

Times are difficult for many, and one area of great concern to the CHC is housing. With more than two million foreclosures predicted over the next two years, the mortgage crisis is far from over. The CHC will remain focused on the nation’s efforts to help those who might lose their home, ensuring that the unique needs of Hispanic borrowers are addressed by policymakers. The American dream of owning a home is being shattered by the current crisis, as current homeowners are losing their homes at alarming rates.

In general, housing affordability remains a challenge for millions of Americans. Even with declining property values resulting from the foreclosure crisis, too many Hispanic families cannot find a home that their incomes can support. The CHC will continue to work towards fair, affordable mortgage products and highlight a variety of housing options, whether rental or alternative ownership concepts like cooperatives, so that each family can have a safe and stable place to live.

We must also look at the macroeconomic impact of the mortgage crisis. Its impact on local communities will reverberate across the nation, as small business owners are affected, which will impact national producers of goods and services. With fewer financing options, many local communities and developers cannot get the needed funding to make much needed repairs or to turn dilapidated and vacant buildings into new affordable housing units. The CHC will focus on ensuring that communities have resources to create additional affordable and safe housing. Read the rest of this entry »

To paraphrase the title of one of my grandkids’ favorite books, Wednesday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. At least as far as children’s health care went.

That’s because Wednesday President Bush and a few of my Republican colleagues succeeded for a second time in derailing a common sense, bipartisan bill that that would have provided health insurance to 10 million children through the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Our bill would have provided an additional $35 billion to this successful program, ensuring coverage for 10 million of our country’s neediest children — more than 6 million who are currently enrolled and an additional 3.8 million who qualify for the program but remain without coverage due to a lack of funding. In California alone more than 600,000 children would have gained health insurance had this bill been enacted. It’s unconscionable that a program that enjoys such strong support from Republicans and Democrats in both houses of Congress, as well as Governors of both parties, and most importantly from a majority of the American people, could be defeated by the misguided opposition of a few individuals. Read the rest of this entry »

I was amazed at the rhetoric I heard during the SCHIP vote. We had Members from our minority side talking about how we had to worry about saving for the stimulus next week, and we wanted to vote for that. But it is amazing they wanted to save money from the SCHIP program to pay for a stimulus, and at the same time they weren’t worried about paying for the billions of dollars a month that we are spending in Iraq. It is amazing how frugal the Republicans are when they want to be.

I feel as if I’m in the Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day� where the same thing keeps happening over and over again. We have voted on several bad SCHIP bills and then sent them to the President only to have him veto them now for the third time. Meanwhile, we passed an extension of the current plan which gives us until March 2009 to craft a good, solid bill that prioritizes health insurance for the poorest children. Now, the majority decides to bring the bad bill back up yet again intensify the political rhetoric that is inevitable during an election year. But, they’re doing it at the expense of children’s health insurance and that is unacceptable.

I was a doctor in Texas for nearly three decades before coming to Congress to help fix the problems I encountered with the government-run programs that fall short of the promises they make. We have made a promise to the nation’s uninsured children to provide them the coverage they need. Unfortunately, these same SCHIP bills still fall short and extend coverage to unintended populations at the expense of those they were intended to cover in the first place. The American people deserve better than empty promises.

While I was disappointed the House was unable to override the veto, going forward we must work in a bipartisan fashion to ensure we pass a bill to significantly reduce the number of children without health insurance.

SCHIP funds an essential portion of Wisconsin’s BadgerCare program for low-income residents. A lot of hard work has gone into the issue, compromises have been made, and I think the President should have signed the bill. We will have to continue efforts to find the right formula for consensus.