Jay Rockefeller: “There are 10 million uninsured children in this country, and that was deemed to be unacceptable. The first approach was…”

“There are 10 million uninsured children in this country, and that was deemed to be unacceptable. The first approach was to try and insure 5 million children. That is what the $16 billion was for, to try to get the first 5 million uninsured children covered. This came from the Senator's side of the aisle in the Finance Committee. We thought that maybe we could go beyond that and approach beyond 5 million. But to be quite honest, I think as we have gone our way through this process, we have come to understand that we can't judge exactly what the States are going to do and we can't be entirely sure. So the CBO is now beginning to give us figures that suggest we won't be able to reach the 5 million children mark, perhaps even with both the $16 billion and the $8 billion program. But then again, we are not sure. But we know we have to try because having uninsured children is not acceptable in America.”