Speech #1100085405

I worked hard to make sure we had that in the budget resolution. I know that is the funding that will be necessary to reach out to the 6 million eligible but uninsured children in America. and it is the funding these children deserve. Another area of major concern is the lack of language to provide health care for legal immigrant children and pregnant women in the Childrens Health Insurance Program. I am a proud cosponsor of the bipartisan Legal Immigrant Childrens Health Improvement Act. also known as ICHIA. which would have repealed the morally objectionable law that prohibits new legal immigrants from accessing Medicaid and CHIP until they have lived in the United States for 5 years. I think we should have the flexibility for States to make that decision. I am proud that in my home State of New Jersey. they have taken it upon themselves to use 100 percent of State funds to cover over 8.000 legal immigrant pregnant women and children at a cost of over $22 million. The State has temporarily fixed the problem. but I had hoped Congress would do the same. How can you tell a 7yearold child with an ear infection he has to wait 5 years to see the doctor? How can you tell a child who may have the incipiency of some incredibly terrible disease you have to wait 5 years to go see the doctor? It seems to me we cant bar these families from accessing our health care supply simply because they havent lived here long enough. During the immigration debate. our colleagues emphasized the difference between those who are here legally and those who are not. So it is appalling to me that a legal immigrant childone whose family waited their time to come to this country. came here legally. obeyed the law. are working. paying taxesis still subject to the lash of those people who. even for a child who is here legally. seem to punish. It seems to me that is simply wrong. Let me close by addressing the Presidents veto threat.