Charles Boustany: “As a physician who's treated many uninsured patients, I have to say that there's a profound difference between coverage…”

“As a physician who's treated many uninsured patients, I have to say that there's a profound difference between coverage and access to care. Yes, you need coverage, but it doesn't necessarily equate to access. Clearly, we've got a number of uninsured children in Louisiana. We have 107,000 on SCHIP but 91,000 who currently qualify who are not on SCHIP. I asked the question why. I offered an amendment in this process to try to get the States to certify, to give reasons and to take steps to clear up this problem, to get those who currently qualify onto the rolls, to let this program work for those it's intended to; yet this amendment wasn't even allowed through the rules process. So this has not been an open and thorough debate on this problem. We need to get away from our dug-in positions on different sides of this and really work hard on this health care access issue to solve it. It's got to be bipartisan. That's the only way it's going to work.”