That is what this debate and vote Is all about. Before I close. there is one part of this bill that is missing and it leaves this entire bill and mission to increase childrens health care unfulfilled. And that is the lack of language to provide health care for legal immigrant children and pregnant women in this bill. I am a proud cosponsor of the bipartisan Legal Immigrant Chidrens Health Improvement Act. also known as ICHIA. which would have repealed the morally objectionable law that prohibits new legal immigrants from accessing Medicaid and SCHIP until they have lived in the United States for 5 years. This bill today should have included a provision that would have given States the flexibility to provide coverage to this population. I am proud of my home State of New Jersey. They have taken it upon themselves to use 100 percent State funds to cover over 8.000 legal immigrant pregnant women and childrenat a cost of over $22 million. My State has temporarily fixed the problem but it is up to Congress to pass the solution into law. How can you tell a 7yearold child with an ear infection he has to wait 5 years to see a doctor? We cannot bar these families from accessing our health care system simply because they havent lived here long enough. During the immigration debate. our colleagues emphasized the difference between those here legally and those here illegally. so it is appalling to me that a legal immigrant child. whose family waited their time. came here legally and obeyed the law. are still subject to republican criticism and are denied health care. These fully legal. taxpaying pregnant women and their children deserve to be covered under our childrens health program. I am disheartened that we could not agree to include this language but you have my promise that I will work to pass ICHIA In coming months.
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immigrant immigrants Immigrant immigration