Herb Kohl: “today I rise to address the growing problem of the uninsured in America. This week is Cover the Uninsured Week. It is…”

“today I rise to address the growing problem of the uninsured in America. This week is Cover the Uninsured Week. It is not only appropriate but necessary that we take this time to acknowledge the tragedy of American families living without health insurance, and often, as a result, without adequate health care. Solving this problem is going to take a lot more than talk; it is going to take decisive action by the Congress and, very importantly, by the administration. The number of Americans without health insurance continues to grow. In 2002, 15 percent of our population--over 43 million Americans--were uninsured. Since the year 2000, 3.8 million more Americans have become uninsured. While Wisconsin is doing better than the national average, we still had nearly 474,000 people uninsured in 2002--almost 10 percent of our population. More than half of the nonelderly uninsured are full-time workers or their spouses and children. It makes no sense to blame this staggering figure just on business. Good businesspeople want to provide health insurance to their employees. They know the value of a workforce that is receiving necessary preventive health care.…”