SCHIP
SCHIP -- (House of Representatives - October 17, 2007)
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Mr. McNERNEY. I thank my friend from Minnesota.
Madam Speaker, the President turned his back on about 10 million American children that he could have protected. I am actually appalled by this decision to veto funding for children's health insurance, and his rejection of support from nearly every U.S. Governor and almost three-quarters of the American people.
The Children's Health Insurance Program is a good program. It is worthy and efficient. It costs less than $3.50 per day per child.
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However, rather than protecting our children, this President put at risk nearly 45,000 of the children in my district and millions of children across the United States. As the cost of health care continues to rise, which it will, it's reckless to oppose a plan that covers our country's most needy children.
Let me tell you what I'm talking about in more personal terms. It's going to cost a family of four about $750 a month for health insurance. That's about $9,000 a year. If you're earning $45,000, you have a family of four, $9,000 is completely out of reach, and this follows on my good friend from Wisconsin.
You have to pay for gasoline, you have to pay for your car, for your transportation, about $1,000 to $2,000 for your mortgage. How on Earth are you going to be able to afford $9,000 a year for health insurance? You're going to be forced to take your children to the emergency rooms when their situations are critical.
So the Children's Health Insurance Program is very important. It's needed. Our children need to have that.
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Mr. McNERNEY. I just want to follow up on the bipartisanship here.
We passed this with a good margin here in the House. We got 265 votes, a clear bipartisan majority. They got 69 votes in the Senate, more than two-thirds. Our Governor in California, Arnold Schwarzenegger supports SCHIP. This is a significant achievement for us to work together to have us produce something that the majority of Americans want across the board, bipartisanship. They want us to cooperate. They want us to do good things for the country. Here, we produce something, we're proud and I'm proud of it, and the President chose to veto it.
So I think this shows that we can work together and that the President needs to come around to our way of seeing this. This is good for the children. Americans want it.
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