I believe strongly the Childrens Health Insurance Program should be expanded to cover dental care for children across this country. lowincome children. This is something we are not able to do as part of this legislation. but I hope we can revisit this issue before final action is taken. A final issue I wanted to discuss relates to important improvements in legislation I hope we can make for legal immigrant children and legal pregnant women. Under current law. these individuals are prohibited from receiving most CHIP or Medicaid coverage for the first 5 years they are resident in the United States on a legal basis. Very often these children and these legal pregnant women. U.S. citizen children I point out. will become eligible for CHIP and Medicaid. It is counterproductive to prevent these legal immigrants from accessing services at the time they become legal residents of our country. Today there is a 5year bar in place to them receiving Medicaid and CHIP coverage. It exists even though the vast majority of these immigrants are working or are in families with working parents and are therefore paying Federal and State taxes. They contribute significantly to the system. but they are barred from receiving the services they are subsidizing. I highlight that legislation to remove this 5year bar.
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