Political Quotes

“I rise to talk about the Children's Health Insurance Program. We all know that healthcare is the most important thing in any person's life and in their family's life, and there is probably no healthcare issue that is more intense than a parents' concern about the health of their children. I think all of the offices in this building have heard from parents about the health of their kids over the course of the number of months we have been debating what to do about the Affordable Care Act. I rise today to talk about another critical program, which I hope we will act in a bipartisan way to reauthorize: the Children's Health Program, or CHIP. CHIP builds on Medicaid, and it gives families who earn too much to be eligible for Medicaid an insurance option for their kids. In talking to families who avail themselves of this option--in Virginia, years ago we didn't do a very good job of enrolling kids in CHIP, and we have become an awful lot better at it. It is interesting to hear the way parents talk about it. They will often talk about how important CHIP is to them when their child is sick or when their child is injured, but what is interesting to me is how important it is to them when their child is perfectly fine--not sick, not injured. But if you are a parent, you are going to have anxiety when you go to bed every night if your child doesn't have insurance or coverage: What if something happens tomorrow?…”