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Children's Health

The Senate this week neared passage of the long-overdue Children’s Health Insurance Program.  The children’s health program is critical as states begin to run out of money for children’s health care, and every time the national unemployment rate goes up one point, 700,000 more children lose their coverage.   “I find it amazing that we have spent so much time debating it,” said Sen. Sanders on the Senate floor on Wednesday.  “The United States of America remains the only country in the industrialized world where this debate would take place.  We’re spending weeks discussing an issue that every other country in the industrialized world has long resolved.”  The senator, a member of the Senate health committee, pointed out that, even after the children’s health care bill passes, 3 million kids will remain without health insurance.

Congress passed the bill twice during its last session and then-President Bush twice vetoed it.  The House has passed a version of this bill already this year. 

To watch the senator’s floor speech on children’s health care, click here. 

To read more about this program to ensure more children have health insurance, you can read the Democratic Policy Committee’s breakdown of the bill here.