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The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. ADERHOLT). Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. JACKSON-LEE) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I believe there has been enough debate on the floor of the House and as evidenced by news reports around this Nation for everyone to be aware that our health care system in America is near crisis in many areas. But today, Mr. Speaker, I announce that the care of our children and health care for our children is in shambles.
About 45 percent of the $4.2 billion provided in the 1997 legislation passed by Congress to provide health care for our children, health insurance, has not been spent by the States, State and Federal officials have announced. Any money left after a September 30 deadline will be redistributed to the 10 States that used their full allotments of Federal money under the children's health insurance program, a program created in 1997. Some 40 States are in jeopardy, and September 30 is fast appearing.
California and Texas, Texas is the State that I come from, together have 29 percent of the Nation's 11 million uninsured children, and my State of Texas, on September 30, 2000, stands to lose $446 million. Seven million of those children living in our Nation, 7 million of the 11 million children needing to have health insurance, are uninsured. Two-thirds of those children live in families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level.
Mr. Speaker, this crisis, this state of shambles must end. This program, this State-run program, covers children from families that do not qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford to buy insurance. This effort was supposed to extend coverage to an additional 2 million children who do not qualify for Medicaid, yet millions of children are believed to be eligible for programs but remain uninsured.
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Texas has the second highest rate of uninsured children in the Nation, with over 25 percent of children under the age of 19 lacking health insurance throughout the years 1996 to 1998. There are 1.4 million uninsured children in Texas, 600,000 eligible for but not in Medicaid, nearly 500,000 qualify for CHIP. We are at the bottom of the totem pole; the bottom of the heap.
And, frankly, Mr. Speaker, we are all in the mix. Texas is in the mix and the governor of the State of Texas is in the mix, for we had a number of years to outreach to those parents, those schools, those children to provide the information, to encourage them to sign up painlessly for the CHIP program. Yet in Dallas we have a young boy waiting for a wheelchair for months and months and months because he is uninsured; or in the city of Houston we have a child waiting for eyeglasses months and months and months because they are uninsured.
There is $446 million to be lost to the Nation's children, particularly in the State of Texas; children suffering from asthma, children who are HIV infected, children who have been diagnosed with cancer, children who need to be able to have good health care, children who are fighting against the Texas rate of infant mortality, which is 5.9 percent with white children and 10.9 percent with black children.
This is a tragedy. And so my call is not only to the State of Texas and other States but it is also to the Federal government. We should delay the September 30 deadline and provide the opportunity for America's children to be insured. It is a shame, it is a crisis to take the money and to redistribute it to States, who may be in need, I agree with that, but do not leave unfulfilled the need of States that have not even touched the surface.
Texas is well-known for having the second highest number of uninsured children. I am calling on Secretary Shalala and the governing body for these CHIP programs to delay the time frame for States to be able to regroup and to reoffer to the Federal Government a strategy that will allow them to draw down on the respective monies. My State of Texas cannot afford to lose these dollars. Our children need immunization, our children need treatment for asthma, cancer, HIV-AIDS, our children need eyeglasses and wheelchairs and basic preventive health care.
At any moment now an outbreak of children's disease could cause a disaster in the State of Texas. It is not without being heard. Need is great, and we must help them. I ask Secretary Shalala, with the administration, to delay the time, and I ask Governor Bush to come home and solve the problem.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to point out the tragedy that nationally, over 44 million Americans are without health insurance and this number is increasing with each passing day. Of this number of uninsured Americans 11 million are children, which means that one in seven of those children living in our nation are uninsured. Two-thirds of these children live in families with income below 200% of the poverty level ($33,400 for a family of four in 1999).
Unfortunately the plight of the uninsured in our nation has grown worse although we are experiencing the longest economic expansion in the last thirty years. Our nation's unemployment rate is at its lowest point in 30 years; core inflation has fallen to its lowest point in 34 years; and the poverty rate is at its lowest since 1979. The last seven years we have seen the Federal budget deficit of $290 billion give way to a $124 billion surplus. Medicaid provides health insurance coverage for more than 40 million individuals--most are women, children, and adolescents--at an annual cost of about $154 billion in combined federal and state funds.
The Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIPS), was passed in 1997. This state-run program covers children from families that do not qualify for Medicaid, but cannot afford to buy insurance. This effort was supposed to extend coverage to an additional 2 million children who do not qualify for Medicaid. Yet millions of children are believed to be eligible for these programs, but remain uninsured.
Texas has the second highest rate of uninsured children in the nation with over 25% of children under the age of 19 lacking health insurance throughout the years 1996-1998.
There are 1.4 million uninsured children in Texas, 600,000 are eligible for, but not in Medicaid; nearly 500,000 qualify for CHIP.
Texas, attempt to combat the number of uninsured children is by combining the options available to states in order to expand health insurance coverage. Texas' combination includes the expansion of Medicaid and state-designed, non-Medicaid programs.
At present time, there is a need for eligibility reforms and aggressive outreach for low-income health programs in Texas.
Texas is at the bottom of retaining low-income kids on Medicaid since welfare reform in 1996. 193,400 Texas children fell off the Medicaid rolls during the past three years, a 14.2% decline.
Medicaid data collected finds an increase in the number of people enrolled in Medicaid in June 1999 compared to June 1998, but the magnitude of this success rate is dampened due to the decline of Medicaid in nine statess--one of them was Texas.
The status quo in Texas is that children (up to age 19) in families with incomes at or under 100% of the federal poverty income level (FPL, $14,150 for a family of 3) can qualify for Medicaid.
Texas has been given the choice to adopt less restrictive methods for counting income and assets for family Medicaid; for example, states can increase earned income disregards, and alter or eliminate asset tests. Texas has been slow compared to other states in implementing CHIP.
Children enrolled in Texas CHIP will get a comprehensive benefits package--includes eye exams and glasses, prescription drugs, and limited dental check-ups, and therapy.
CHIP does not serve as an alternative to Medicaid for those families, who based on their income, are eligible for Medicaid.
MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY
The U.S. ranks 22nd among industrialized nations.
Infant mortality rates are twice as high for Black infants than for White infants and Black infants are four times more likely to die because of low birthweight than are white infants.
In Texas, the infant mortality rate is 5.9% for children with a White mother versus 10.9% for those with a Black mother.
Although the absolute number of deaths due to cancer in children and adolescents is low relative to adults, cancer remains the second leading cause of death among Texas children ages 1 to 14 years.
Cancer is diagnosed in about 800 Texas children and young adults under the age of 20 each year.
Although lead has been banned from gasoline and paint, it is estimated that nearly 900,000 children have so much lead in their blood that it could impair their ability to learn.
The estimated number of children under age 13 who acquired AIDS before or during birth increased each year during the period from 1984 through 1992.
New case rates and death rates for HIV/AIDS are disproportionately higher for children of color than for White children. AIDS among Black and Hispanic adolescents accounted for approximately 83% of reported cases in 1997.
Hospitalizations for children with asthma have been increasing for most of the 1990's. Low-income children are more likely to suffer from asthma with the sharpest increases being among urban minority children. If trends continues, asthma will become one of the major childhood diseases of the 21st century.
CHILDHOOD NUTRITION
Teen obesity has more than doubled in the past 30 years. Next to smoking, obesity is the leading cause of preventable death and disease. Obesity continues to disproportionately affect poor youth and minority children because of poor diet and lack of exercise.
13.6 percent of all American children are overweight. Yet, 11.8 percent of low-income children experience moderate to severe hunger, compared with 1.9 percent of children in households with income above the poverty level.
Approximately 35 children each day are diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, which can lead to blindness, heart attack, kidney failure and amputations. Type 2 diabetes is increasingly high among minority children.
Before 1992, only 1 to 4% of children was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes or other forms of diabetes. Now, reports indicate that up to 45% of children with newly diagnosed diabetes have Type 2 diabetes.
CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH
Currently, there are 13.7 million children in this country with a diagnosable mental health disorder, yet less than 20% of these children receive the treatment they need. At least one in five children and adolescents has a diagnosable mental, emotional, or behavioral problem that can lead to school failure, substance abuse, violence or suicide.
However, 75 to 80 percent of these children do not receive any services in the form of speciality treatment or some form of mental health intervention.
The White House and the U.S. Surgeon General have recognized that mental health needs to be a
national priority in this nation's debate about comprehensive health care.
Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for more than 1% of all deaths.
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The National Mental Health Association reports that most people who commit suicide have a mental or emotional disorder. The most common is depression.
According to the 1999 Report of the U.S. Surgeon General, for young people 15-24 years old, suicide is the third leading cause of death behind intentional injury and homicide.
Persons under the age of 25 accounted for 15% of all suicides in 1997. Between 1980 and 1997, suicide rates for those 15-19 years old increased 11% and for those between the ages of 10-14, the suicide rates increased 99% since 1980.
More teenagers died from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, strokes, influenza and chronic lung disease combined.
Within every 1 hour and 57 minutes, a person under the age of 25 completes suicide.
Black male youth (ages 10-14) have shown the largest increase in suicide rates since 1980 compared to other youths groups by sex and ethnicity, increasing 276%.
Almost 12 young people between the ages of 15-24 die every day by suicide.
In a study of gay male and lesbian youth suicide, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found lesbian and gay youth are two to six times more likely to attempt suicide than other youth and account for up to 30 percent of all completed teen suicides.
We must act to prevent states like Texas, California, and Louisiana from loosing millions of dollars in federal funds which have been provided to insure our nation's uninsured poor children.
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