Ron Kind: “Mr. Speaker, last fall, my 8-year-old son Matt, while he was sleeping, fell off the top of his bunkbed, broke his…”

“Mr. Speaker, last fall, my 8-year-old son Matt, while he was sleeping, fell off the top of his bunkbed, broke his clavicle. As Tawni and I were driving to the emergency room to get treatment to this kid in excruciating pain, I thought of the numerous parents throughout America who fear the financial consequences of taking care of their child in an emergency or if they had an ear infection or an abscessed tooth or an asthma attack because they didn't have adequate health care coverage for that child. That is wrong. That is unacceptable. And we change that today. The CHAMP Act expands health coverage to 5 million more children, and with the reforms we make under the Medicare system, we extend the solvency of Medicare for three additional years, unlike the Republican-passed Medicare reform bill passed just a few years ago that called for the largest expansion of entitlement funding in over 40 years, with no ability to pay for it. We pay for this bill with a modest increase in the cigarette tax, which is also the best thing we can do to prevent these kids from being addicted to that poison and incurring smoking-related illness with associated life-long health costs. I ask my colleagues to support the bill.”