Date: 2011-05-03
Speaker: JACKSON LEE (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment. I appreciate very much my friend and colleague from Texas. and I believe that this is an amendment that Republicans and Democrats can join on. maybe for different reasons. I have indicated that I believe the repealing of the support for schoolbased health clinics and construction thereof is an unfortunate act on behalf of Americas children. My amendment is very simple. It requires the Department of Health and Human Services to post public notice on its official Web site that the mandated funds from Section 410(1)(a) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. including the amounts of the funds. will be rescinded. It explains to the American public just what we are doing and it gives them a linebyline. dollarbydollar impact of what happens when they take money away that is already being invested. that will be invested. to help build a health care infrastructure in their neighborhood. so that children like this young man and many others who may not have access to health care can have a schoolbased clinic. The amendment will provide the public with important information about mandatory schoolbased health center funding that will no longer be available for them to receive these preventative care services. This amendment also assists my good friends on the other side of the aisle by permitting them to easily show the American public that they are cutting public spending. But yet we must weigh the balancecutting spending. or alleging that you are going to benefit from these cut funds. and undermining the health care system of America. When the Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010. and the President signed it into law. the Department of Health and Human Services was given a mandate to provide funding for expanded and sustained national health investment in schoolbased health center construction programs to improve clinical preventive services and help restrain the growth in private and public health costs. Nearly every State has schoolbased health centers. There are about 2.000. It provides mandatory funds for building and improving schoolbased health centers. There are now 350 applications for 46 States with shovelready projects. It couldnt be all bad. If H.R. 1214 is passed. it will kill those funds. It will repeal it. And yet this particular amendment will point out Sophies choicesnot really good choicesto take away from our children good health care under the pretense of cutting the deficit. The majority of the funding that is being cut by my friends is from discretionary services. few dollars that represent only a small portion of the Nations budget. appropriations. and deficit. And so I ask that we support this amendment because truth is in the pudding. Lets see what theyre doing and how you can get good health care and cut schoolbased clinics. Let me quickly say this. Were trying to make sure that we have places in neighborhoods for people to evacuate toschools that are secure enough and strong enough that you could run or you could evacuate or you could be safe in place. Schoolbased clinics. health clinics. provide places to take the wounded from a hurricane or tornado or a disaster unforeseenor a manmade disaster. So I would ask my colleagues to vote for this amendment. to support this amendment. because it shows the light of what we should and should not be doing. With that. I reserve the balance of my time. The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman may not reserve her time. The Committee is operating under the 5minute rule. in which case the gentlewoman is recognized for 5 minutes. The gentlewoman still has 1 minute and 10 seconds remaining.