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SCHIP and Real Life

October 10, 2007
Blog Post
With the vote to override President Bush's veto of the SCHIP children's health care bill approaching on October 18th, Democrats continue to urge more of their colleagues to join them in voting to give real working families "peace of mind."

See the Gavel's "Affordable Health Care" archive >>

Rep. Joe Sestak (PA-07): "But I rise most because what I saw when my 4-year-old daughter, who was given three to nine months to live and we lived in a cancer ward in this city. And her roommate -- when this nation because of my military service, gave me the best health care possible for her to have an opportunity -- her roommate was a young two and a half year old boy diagnosed with acute leukemia, whose parents did not have health insurance and social workers had to discuss whether that boy would, with my daighter, have an opportunity to live into life. I rise in support of this bill for that young boy."

Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel:

"Dolores lives in my district. She works for an insurance company that doesn't provide health care. She has three children and they'd like to buy private health care for her children, but can't afford it. Her children were on SCHIP and without the SCHIP program they'd have gone without health care. Our bill does right by the Sweeney children and 10 million other children from working families. But the President says it's too expensive and calls it welfare for the middle class. And at the same time, the President is eager to spend $680 billion dollars in Iraq. We have spent $400 billion in 4 years in the war in Iraq and for 40 days for the cost of war, 10 million children in America would get health care for a year. So the President can call the Children's Health Insurance 'excessive spending' and he can call SCHIP 'welfare,' but for Dolores Sweeney, it's a peace of mind."