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1) Sen. Kahn’s "journal statement"  by Admin003 on October 19, 2007 
Senator Kahn’s statement is as follows.

In April, I introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 5, authorizing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to be reauthorized. It was supported by virtually every one of us. The President supports and supported reauthorization of that program, and not only supports and supported reauthorization of that program, but the expansion of its funding by 20 percent. This program was—as pointed out by the Senator from the 27th District—oriented towards the poor and those in need.

The bill that is being debated in Congress now from the point of view of a budget override has expanded way beyond the initial intent of SCHIP, in Michigan MIChild, and expanded way beyond what the President was willing, in fact, also to expand it to. Months ago, the President made clear that he would veto a SCHIP bill that takes the program beyond the original intent, beyond the intent of covering poor children. He made it clear that he would veto a bill that moves children who now have private health care insurance into a government-run program and a program that is an incremental step towards a government run health care system, like those that we see in Europe that ration care by the month and sometimes for some procedures or treatments by the year.

The bill that we’ve been debating today or speaking about today that is before the federal government today includes additional spending funded with a tax increase, an issue that we here, in speaking about Michigan, the Michigan tax increases certainly found bruising enough.



Once this bill and the override at the federal level is through, the President looks forward to working with Congress to pass a SCHIP reauthorization that he can sign and that bill that he has stated that he can sign will include an increase in funding.



And so, Mr. President, I look forward to getting beyond today’s discussion both here and in Washington to a bill that Congress can pass that is clean and extends the SCHIP at least on a temporary basis until the disagreements are worked out and a bill that prevents families who rely on SCHIP from suffering in the interval.



Senator Cropsey’s statement is as follows: Some of the things that were said on the floor today by the party on the other side of the aisle were particularly offensive. I can’t think that our President would go in the war because he has a lust for war or words to that effect. If I recall correctly, when we entered into the war in Iraq, it was done by a congressional resolution which had tremendous bipartisan support because of the Hitler who was there in the Middle East who was threatening world security. And I think a President who stands up for our national interest and goes into war with bipartisan congressional support is looking out for out best interest. And as a father of two soldiers, I find that particularly offensive for people to say that our Commander-in-Chief has a lust for that type of thing.



I’d like to now speak to the issue that brought this about and, by the way, if you don’t have a strong national defense, all your other social programs aren’t worth anything at all. And consider that. We take a look at the SCHIP program, what was being spouted here earlier was that is everybody aware that this was a massive expansion of the program and that 5.8 million children who had gained public coverage because of the bill, and this is congressional budget estimate, 35 percent of them already had private health insurance. I’d like to ask the other side of the aisle, why are you encouraging people to give up private health insurance to go onto a federal government-sponsored program? Furthermore, the Senate version of the SCHIP bill grandfathers in New York, which has a higher match rate than the rest of the country, allowing the SCHIP children of some households in the state of New York to have up to $83,000 and they qualify. In New Jersey, which would also have been grandfathered in, we’re talking about families with incomes No. 108] [October 18, 2007] JOURNAL OF THE SENATE 1695 up to $72,000. I’m not particularly interested in having the federal government be raising taxes on us to finance families of $72,000 in New Jersey or $83,000 in New York when families in my district already have enough problems trying to get insurance.



Another thing, I found it very interesting that Congressman McCotter, former State Senator in this body, has written a letter to this Governor. This Governor has made public comments on this program and he has asked her several questions.



I’d just like to read some of those questions and say if the Governor won’t respond, perhaps the verbosity of people on the other side of the aisle will come up with a response.



First question he asked was, “According to the state of Michigan’s own budget projections as submitted to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services in 2008, the state of Michigan will be spending 71.6 percent of Michigan kids’ SCHIP funding on childless adults.” Now this is interesting; we hide behind the kids to give adults coverage? The second question, “According to the congressional research service in 2006, approximately 46 percent of all Michigan SCHIP children were enrollees, not kids.” And Congressman McCotter asked, “Is this true? If so, will this percentage of adults increase under the proposed SCHIP expansion?” Another question, the third question he asked, “According to the congressional budget office, the proposed SCHIP that builds a new sin tax on tobacco requires at least 22 million new smokers to fund its promised expansion. How many new smokers do you believe Michigan is going to contribute to this number and how are you going to encourage nonsmoking Michiganders to pick the habit?” You know, I think when I take a look at this, I’m wondering why the other side of the aisle is hiding behind kids in order to increase smoking in this state and get people off of private insurance onto the public dole.

2) Sen. Jansen’s "journal statement"  by Admin003 on October 19, 2007 
Senator Jansen’s statement is as follows.

I would like to respond to a few words that were spoken earlier by some of our colleagues here today. Everybody has been offended by something and I was also. As I was listening, I believe in free speech. I believe all of us here have the right to say a lot of things, but we have to agree to disagree. But in one of the comments, our President was talked about as having a regime. Well, excuse me, but I don’t live in a communist country. We have the right to stand up for whatever we believe in, and we have to respect those who are leading. I happen to do that. Now maybe everybody doesn’t, but I think those who want to call our President the leader of a regime ought to rethink that.

I look at our budget—I’ve been gone four years—and when I left, we had about 25 percent of our budget as federal money. And today, with that President that we’re calling a regime, we’re up to 31 percent federal money. Now it seems to me that we’re being taken care of by the federal government in ways that you have forgotten.

I would ask my colleagues who are going to call names to people who are leaders, maybe you ought to rethink that because we have been saved by the federal government in our budget over the last four years. Yes, we’ve patched; yes, we’ve taken out different funds from different places, but the federal government has been very helpful to Michigan and to all of us here.

As you want to pontificate about our leaders and leadership, please rethink that and call a President a President and respect that person in leadership.

3) Sen. Gleason’s "journal statement"  by Admin003 on October 19, 2007 
Senator Gleason’s statement is as follows.

There’s been a lot of talk the last few minutes in regard to what might or might not happen to Michigan’s children.

Let me tell you a story about that. We’ve had this program for about a decade. I’d ask any Senator since the inception of that program who would qualify for that program to stand up. That’s just about what I figured. I figured I’d be the only one standing. I qualified for that program and so did my kids.

I was deathly sick, and many of you know and I’ve said it many times that I had an organ transplant. I did not go on public assistance, but I made not enough money to qualify for that program and my kids did too. Now there are a lot of families out there just like mine in the last decade who can use that support. I know a little bit about it because I could have been in it and chose not to be. I had a new baby and two years later had another new baby and a wife. Now today we get to talking about somebody running for Congress and about what’s important and what’s not important, but I’m going to tell you that I lived it every single second til I got my transplant.

So before we really start talking about how these programs affect individuals and families, we ought to be like the old Indian said and maybe walk a mile in their moccasins. I walked that mile. When I hear this talk about what’s important and what’s not important, I’m reminded about what my wife and my two kids went through. I chose not to go on assistance. I could have. There are a lot of people who are a lot worse off than I was, and my family and the strength of my wife helped us get through that. They need that insurance.



Now there’s a misconception out there that these kids who are on it today are going to stay on it, but the facts are that they’re coming up about a million and a half short over those who they covered last year—kids just like my kids.



Now this is not a filibuster coming from me. This is a fact of life, so before we start getting sidetracked about what’s important and what’s not important, you remember when we are talking about the resolution, I said it was appropriately named: “MI Kids”—more than any other state—“MI Kids.” Well, maybe a thing that’s just slightly different that my kids would be a portion of the 1.6 million we covered last year who we’re not going to cover this year, but that’s done with now.



I just hope in the future that when we start running off that maybe we try to put ourselves in other peoples’ positions.



We all have a pretty comfortable living now, and I can say as one who didn’t a few years ago that a lot of times people say things that they don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. But I always think we should put a premium on our kids. The best thing we can do for our kids is make sure they’re insured.



Let’s not get sidetracked, folks. Let’s not start tearing each other up about what’s important and what’s not important, about whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, or whether you’re running for Congress or not. I hope we do better in the future when we’re talking about and dealing with Michigan’s children.

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