Tim Ryan: “This is about making our country more competitive, period. This is a moral issue. This is an issue that needs to be…”

“This is about making our country more competitive, period. This is a moral issue. This is an issue that needs to be handled, and needs to be addressed. But as our friend from Cleveland was saying, this is about those kids in Cleveland and Youngstown and Miami becoming more competitive because they are healthier, they go to school healthier, they are not getting all the other kids sick, and therefore everyone in the classroom is at a better starting point to learn. When you talk about competing with China, you talk about competing with India, 1.3 billion people in each country, and we only have 300 million, we need to get everybody on a level playing field. That is what this Children's Health Care Program does. Mr. Speaker, look at what the President would do by not signing this bill. Our bill will cover all of these kids. It is a bipartisan bill, the congressional bill that passed; 3.8 million additional kids. Now if the President gets his way, in his budget 840,000 children will lose their SCHIP coverage, because health care costs are going up, more kids are going into the system, the poverty rate is going up. So this is about making us more competitive by making sure that the poor kids, middle-class kids in our country, have an opportunity to get a little bit of health care.”