On the recordJanuary 24, 2018
earlier this week, the Senate voted to pass a continuing resolution to reopen the government. This came after weeks of acrimony and no shortage of hostility here on the Senate floor and elsewhere. While most of the recent debate has been focused on the future of immigration policy, another vitally important priority--and a bipartisan priority, no less--was also addressed this week. I am talking, of course, about the 6-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program, which was included in the funding bill. It is a shame, really, that this bipartisan accomplishment has, in some respects, been overlooked while more attention has been given to partisan squabbling over other divisive issues. Since its inception, CHIP has been a bipartisan program. In 1997, Senator Kennedy and I came together to create CHIP in order to provide health insurance to vulnerable children. It was a Republican-controlled Congress working with a Democratic President that brought this program into existence. The year before, that same Republican Congress and Democratic President worked together to produce another landmark welfare reform bill that sought to replace a culture of dependency with an emphasis on work. S-CHIP became a necessity for those families making the transition. Prior to the introduction of the original CHIP bill, I came across a number of families with parents who worked but still could not afford private coverage for their children.…
