WASHINGTON, DC- Following Senate passage of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill, U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) issued the following statement:
“With this Senate vote, we are one step closer to providing health care coverage to more than 10.5 million American children.
“When we speak of families and children's health insurance we speak and we think mostly about parents and the relationship they have to their children and what they want for their children. They, of course, want their children to succeed in life. They have hopes and dreams for their children. But, of course, for a parent, and especially for a mother, who is often providing most of the care for a child, her initial hopes, her initial fears, her concerns at the beginning of that child's life are very basic: Will that child be born healthy? Will that child grow and develop as he or she should?
“This legislation will help ensure that the parents of ten million children have one less thing to keep them up at night.
“After this victory, we have much more work to do to improve the quality and affordability of health care for all Americans. As a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee I look forward to being at the center of that debate and to represent the interests of my constituents.
“In the previous Congress, we passed this bill twice only to have it vetoed twice. Thankfully, for the more than four million children and their families who will join the more than six million children currently covered, we now have a President who will sign this landmark bill.”
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