Orrin Hatch: “today, Senator Kennedy, I, and a number of others, are introducing the Hatch-Kennedy child health insurance and lower…”

“today, Senator Kennedy, I, and a number of others, are introducing the Hatch-Kennedy child health insurance and lower deficit bill, or the CHILD Act, S. 525. We will also introduce a companion measure, S. 526, which contains a tobacco excise tax increase to pay for the program established in the CHILD bill. The CHILD bill has been negotiated over a long period of time in intensive and sometimes heated negotiations. As anybody can understand, it is difficult to get the two sides together on matters like this. So we have worked very, very hard to try and bring both sides together. It is no secret that Senator Kennedy and I have worked together in the past. And, we have fought each other in the past. But today is a time of unity, for I believe we have written a bill that really makes sense, a bill that will work and that will help one of the most vulnerable segments of our society, children without health insurance. Of the 40 million people who are uninsured in this country, 10 million of them are children.”