Steve Kagen: “we've been talking the last several weeks here in Congress about the SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance…”

“we've been talking the last several weeks here in Congress about the SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program. This is the SCHIP face I'd like to show America. Before I discuss with you in the next several minutes the SCHIP program, I'd like to show you the face of Kailee Meronek from Appleton. I represent her. She's not here to speak for herself, so I have the great honor and duty of speaking on her behalf. She has a younger sister who is 3 months of age, and a young mother who's earning $2.33 an hour at a restaurant. She qualifies for SCHIP. She has benefited from SCHIP; and because she is covered by this state-run program, she sees her doctor in the doctor's office and not in the emergency room. Kailee needs our help and she needs our support. She will some day have to pay for a war that is costing the American taxpayers $400 million a day. And yet we're not even paying for this war. The occupation of Iraq is being paid for by borrowed money from China that Kailee and her younger sister, Cassidy, will have to pay back some day. The SCHIP program is a state-run program that's been very successful. We aim to reauthorize this program and expand its coverage to all children in America who are eligible. That's up to about 10.8 million to 11 million children who are the lowest income strata in the country. The SCHIP program will focus on the working families who need the help the most.”