Congressman Henry Cuellar

April 30 - This week, I join many of my colleagues in bringing focus to expanding health coverage for our nation’s children. During “Cover the Uninsured” week, I reaffirm my commitment to coming to the aid of the nearly 9 million American children without health insurance.

The State Children’s Health Insurance Program—or “SCHIP”—was established by Congress in 1997 to expand health care coverage for children.  It provides matching funds to states to help them provide health care coverage for children living in families that are earning too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance.  Since that time it's been a successful, cost-effective program, currently providing health care coverage to 6 million children.

When I was a member of the Texas State legislature, I had an opportunity to help implement the first CHIP program in the State of Texas. Again, it's a story that's worked very well. In fact, as the program grew, the number of uninsured children in our Nation has dropped dramatically, even though child poverty was on the rise and many of the families were losing their employer-based health coverage.

Over the past two years, however, the number of uninsured children has increased. There are now 8.7 million children in our nation who are uninsured. Of the 1.5 million uninsured Texas children, 850,000 are eligible for but not enrolled in CHIP or Children's Medicaid. With the expansion of the SCHIP, we can extend coverage to these children.

Under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the revised State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) Reauthorization was brought to the floor and by strong, bipartisan votes of 265 to 159 in the House and 67 to 29 in the Senate.  And yet, unfortunately, the President vetoed this bipartisan bill.

Our society has an obligation to protect our children, who cannot protect themselves. House and Senate Republicans and Democrats will continue to work together to cover 10 million children from low-income working families who need and deserve quality healthcare. Our children deserve no less.

Henry Cuellar is member of Congress for District 28. A Democrat, Cuellar resides in Laredo. He is a member of the House Homeland Security, Small Business, and Agriculture Committees in the 110th Congress. Cuellar is also a Senior Whip.

Write Henry Cuellar

Printable version