Jeff Bingaman: “yesterday, I introduced the first part of a series of proposals to protect and strengthen our nation's health care…”

“yesterday, I introduced the first part of a series of proposals to protect and strengthen our nation's health care safety net. That bill, the ``Strengthening Our States'' or SOS Act of 2003,'' seeks to protect and improve the Medicaid program--a critical component of our country's health system. To repeat the words of Diane Rowland and Jim Tallon of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, ``Medicaid is the glue that helps hold our health system together and takes on the highest-risk, sickest, and most expensive populations from private insurance and Medicare. Like a waterfront community that seeks to set up barricades against a rising river, defending the Medicaid program from attacks, such as the idea of a block grant, is a top priority. However, once that is assured, we must also take the next step and confront the fact that an estimated 41.2 million people, or almost 15 percent of the population, was without health insurance during the entire year of 2001, which was an increase of 1.4 million people over 2000. Moreover, the numbers in 2002 and this year have undoubtedly worsened.”