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Alaskan Congressman Don Young voted in favor of S. 2499 the Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007. This legislation ensures that the health of both our nation’s senior citizens and children are taken care of. This bill includes a half-percent increase in physician reimbursement rates as well as an extension of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program through March 2009. The SCHIP extension not only continues the program, but increases funding to prevent any shortfalls. Without this extension, Alaska would stand to lose $11.8 million in funding for its neediest children.

"This extension of SCHIP is a much more responsible version than we were first handed months ago," said Rep. Young. "This version doesn’t hand free health care down to illegal citizens, or to adults. Instead it takes care of low-income children, which is what it was intended to do to begin with. If we do nothing else as a Congress, we need to make sure that children are our priority. They are our future, and without them, we are nothing.

"I was pleased to see so many rural provisions included in the Medicare portion of this bill. We put a six month extension on the 5% bonus to those willing to work in rural areas; we included a six month extension of reimbursements to small rural hospitals for costs associated with lab tests; and there is also a one year extension of a provision that allows for greater wage equality in certain labor markets. These are all victories for the many folks that call rural Alaska their home, and just want access to affordable, good health care.

"Of course, neither the Medicare nor the SCHIP are new legislation; they are just extensions of what we already have. This will allow Congress more time to hopefully stop the political theatre and start hammering out good health care bills that take care of Americans."

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