Frank Pallone: “I know the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee] is right, and I know for a fact that there are people in that…”

“I know the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee] is right, and I know for a fact that there are people in that category. I think it is a twofold problem, and I think it relates to the issue of health insurance for kids in general. On the one hand there is the fact that there are a lot of people increasingly who do not even realize that they need to do this, and then of course, once they do, not having the access, because as we know, vaccination is not as widespread as it once was, particularly in urban areas or certain rural areas where people just either are not aware or they do not have access any more. I wanted to just mention, if I could, the gentlewoman talked about enrolling, and we mentioned before there are 3 million children of the 10 million who are eligible for Medicaid and who are not enrolled. We spent some time with the task force, as the gentlewoman knows, trying to figure out how to deal with this, because outreach is not really something that oftentimes is effectively done on the Federal level. What we have in our bill is grants to States to help local communities to develop outreach programs with maximum flexibility to employ community resources.”