Frank Pallone: “in December I and about 30 other Democrats sent a letter to President Clinton requesting that he include a program to…”

“in December I and about 30 other Democrats sent a letter to President Clinton requesting that he include a program to provide assistance to the Nation's 10 million uninsured children in his budget that he would submit to Congress, and I am naturally very pleased that in his State of the Union Address tonight the President will announce a proposal to have Medicaid cover the 10 million children who currently lack health insurance. In millions of American working families both spouses work and yet neither works at a job that offers health insurance benefits, and while Medicaid provides coverage for children and families near or below the poverty level, many working families make more than the Medicaid threshold but not enough to afford health care premiums, and as a result millions of working parents remain unable to provide any health insurance whatsoever for their children. Hoping to expand upon the progress made by last year's passage of the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, congressional Democrats have been working hard to develop ways to address this problem. Indeed, many Members here in the House, including myself, are working on legislative proposals to remedy the problem. But I believe that making health insurance available to uninsured children really should be a central part of what we do in this Congress.”