Jay Rockefeller: “it gives me great pleasure and pride to introduce today the MediKids Health Insurance Act of 2001. I am joined by my…”

“it gives me great pleasure and pride to introduce today the MediKids Health Insurance Act of 2001. I am joined by my colleague Representative Stark, who is introducing companion legislation in the House. In 1997, we passed historic legislation which created the Children's Health Insurance Program. I was a proud sponsor of the CHIP legislation with our late-colleague Senator John Chafee. However, one thing which we have learned throughout the implementation process of CHIP is that while it provides a vehicle for insuring our nation's low-income children, it does not guarantee all of America's children health insurance coverage and access to affordable health care. I'm pleased to say that of the 26,000 West Virginia children without health insurance two years ago, according to the most recent state estimate nearly 20,000 have now enrolled in the CHIP program. But this is not enough. We can do better for our children to make sure they can count on access to the care they need to grow up healthy. It should not be so hard. Today, there remain more than 10 million children in America without health insurance, in spite of more and more children being enrolled in CHIP every day. Clearly, there is still much more that can and should be done to guarantee health coverage to all American children. Today, I offer a solution to ensure that all of our nation's children have access to health care.”