SCHIP

Floor Speech

SCHIP -- (House of Representatives - September 25, 2007)

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, we have 47 million Americans without health insurance. Today, we are going to have an opportunity to vote on providing 10 million children with continued health care coverage that they are going to need. This is, as in the spirit of many of the good things we have done, bipartisan. The Governor of Vermont, Republican, supports it. Republican Senators Hatch and Grassley support it, done a tremendous job. The response from the President, unfortunately, is to veto this legislation.

It is hard to understand how it is that, when the cost of this program is the equivalent of 2 weeks' spending on the war in Iraq, we can't find it in our capacity to spend that money to make certain that parents, when they go to bed at night, know their kids, when they need a doctor, will have access to the health care that they need. Our opportunity here in this House is to send the President a message, in the hopes that he will do the right thing and sign this bill, with an overwhelming bipartisan bill that reflects the bipartisan work and bicameral work that was done to bring it to the floor.

Source