Jay Rockefeller: “I rise with great pride today to speak in support of the Children's Health Insurance Program--or CHIP-- Reauthorization…”

“I rise with great pride today to speak in support of the Children's Health Insurance Program--or CHIP-- Reauthorization Act of 2007, legislation I authored with Senators Baucus, Grassley and Hatch to provide health care to 4 million children in need. It is fitting that we are starting debate on CHIP reauthorization today because in less than 1 week--on Sunday, August 5, 2007--we will be celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the date that this landmark and widely successful program was signed into law. This all started out quite some time ago with John Chafee and myself and some others, about 10 years ago. But there has been an intensity of effort led by Chairman Baucus, Ranking Member Grassley, myself, and Orrin Hatch over the last 3 months, meeting up to 2 hours a day, virtually every day, our staff meeting around the clock to try to reach bipartisan consensus, which we have reached, all by giving up some and reaching accommodation. I have to say I have a lot of pride in what we are doing today.”