say they may not support this bill where are the values that we talk about in this institution where all the family values voices that so often are heard in this chamber now is not the time to be silent now is when families need you most now is the time to stand by your values and stand up to protect our future generations so these colleagues i'd like to take a moment to answer some questions about new jersey's efforts to reach out and enroll more children over the past few weeks the jerseys received a lot of attention for covering children up to three hundred fifty percent of the federal poverty level  d you know and that in our regard we think we're doing the right thing and statistics prove out that where we're right i can understand that some might think that these families have enough money to afford private insurance but for new jersey families that's simply not the case new jersey families based higher living costs and they get less return on the federal dollar so we can offset a policy that suggests that one size fits all into any account you know at the top and i did some of the math which i want to share with my colleagues you know at the top and working the jersey family family budget about forty four hundred twenty eight dollars an income housing in new jersey is incredibly expensive fifteen hundred six dollars a month food for that family five forty seven transportation to get to work or they happen to have a cause to pay for the commutes back and or for the high gas prices eight hundred twenty childcare if they're not in school and health insurance i looked up under the bureau of banking and insurance what's the average health insurance for a family coverage a month a month and a subsistence on the website is two thousand and sixty five dollars so that puts this family if they have to be forced to purchase health insurance in a negative twelve hundred dollars a month that means they can't make ends meet and this doesn't take into account any unforeseen circumstance on the family budget so it doesn't end up adding up and that's why this program so important that's why when new jerseyan rolls children up to three hundred fifty percent of the federal poverty level they do it because without this coverage we'd have thousands of children more would have no health insurance purchasing a private plan no matter what tax incentives you give i hear some of our colleagues are talking about giving a five thousand dollars maximum credit for a family well that's great buys is two and a half months of insurance what do we do for the rest of the year for that family we roll the dice on their health care i don't think so not when we as an institution have some of the best health care in the nation so i'm grateful to the finance committee for recognizing what we already knew on a bipartisan basis one size fits all approach just doesn't work remember object is to cover more children not less and i can't believe that i even need to mention what i'm about to say but in light of some of the comments i've heard over the past few weeks about you know  president saying that let me go to the emergency room i think it might be necessary to look at what happens to children without health insurance and how they suffer serious consequences research has shown that uninsured children not only missed regular checkups and visits to the doctors for less serious conditions that ultimately become far more serious in their personal health and far more consequential and far more expensive but they also received and lower quality care in fact uninsured children admitted to a hospital due to injuries were twice twice as likely to die while than the hospital as their uninsured counterparts and that is simply on acceptable there's no morality if upon hearing this every member of this chamber does not do everything in his or her power to cover more children it's i believe a moral obligation now i often hear about the value of life and i cherish it as well now is the time on to the value of the lives of these children and the way that new jersey has been successful in covering more children is because we also cover low income and working parents in new jersey with found a strong correlation between enroll in a parent's enrollment in children after the state implemented its parent expansion in two thousand not only did it experience rapid roman parents but it also saw a significant increase in their romance of children which is our gulped in two thousand and two the state stopped enrolling parents and what happened as parent roman began to fall children's enrollment began to level off once the state began reading rolling parents in two thousand and five children's coverage began to rise again there is clear evidence that by allowing those states to choose to do so to cover parents you increase the number of children who have health coverage achieving our ultimate goal covering more children and by the way we end up covering more americans to further prove this point former congressional budget office director peter orszag recently stated that quote restricting eligibility to parents does have does have an effect on the uptake among children in part because when you pick up the parent you're more likely to pick up the child thus if we stop covering parents on the child health insurance program as some in the congress and the white house want to do you end up covering fewer children in fact the doors quote for every three of four parents you lose you lose one or two kids based on this in new jersey if we were be forced to disenroll all of our parents over forty thousand children would lose their coverage this doesn't help us achieve our goal of covering more children so again we've got to ask is covering the parents of eligible children good for our nation's children the answer is clearly yes and as i said at the beginning of the statement i fully support the legislation we're considering today as senator baucus has done an excellent job i appreciate the bipartisan vote of the committee i'm proud of the reauthorization bill because of what it prioritises but also because i know how hard it was to reach this compromise this is a bipartisan bill that members on both sides of the aisle support i know that it's taken long nights and serious conversation and many difficult decisions to reach where we're off today and i appreciate again  the incredible efforts members of the committee as well of the majority leader reid for their efforts on behalf of the program that's being set i just simply want to say that if i had my druthers i would have achieved sought to achieve a greater height i understand so with many of the members who actually created the compromise i would have liked to have seen as a member as i did in the as a member of the senate budget committee fifty billion dollars provided i worked hard to make sure that we had that in the budget resolution i know that that's the funny that will be necessary to reach out to the six million eligible but uninsured children in america and it's the funding these children deserve another area of major concern is  lack of language to provide health care for illegal immigrant children and pregnant women in the child health insurance program you know i'm a proud co sponsor of the bipartisan legal immigrant children's health and proven act also known as ikea which would have repealed the currently objectionable law that prohibits new legal immigrants from a job assessing accessing medicaid and chip until they have lived in the united states for five years i think we should have the flexibility for states to make that decision i'm proud that in my home state of new jersey they've taken it upon themselves to use one hundred percent of state funds to cover over eight thousand illegal immigrant pregnant women and children at a cost of over twenty two million dollars the state is temporary fix the product problem but i had hoped congress would do the same now how can you tell a seven year old child with an ear infection has got to wait five years to see the doctor how can you tell a child who incipient same incredibly terrible disease got to wait five years to go see the doctor it seems to me we can't forbid these families from accessing our health care supply simply because they haven't lived here long enough you know during the immigration debate our colleagues emphasize the difference between those who are here legally and those who are not so it's appalling to me that a legal immigrant child those whose families waited their time to come to this country came here legally of beda law or working paying taxes they're still subject to the lash of those people who even with a child who is here illegally seem to punish them seems to me that's simply wrong let me close to address the president's veto threat is basically opposed to this bill because it says it covers too many children and families  i don't know how great just a statement and unacceptable a statement can be i find it embarrassing that some in washington those who have the best health care coverage in the world would propose to cut america's neediest famil neediest families who were quite every day because if you're really poor you're on medicaid these are families who get off work hard don't make enough to pay insurance don't have coverage through work and can't afford it and yet the president the united states got the best coverage in the world the vice president of the united states just saw him recently in the hospital after that everything went well for him but they have no worries they have no worries every night for them to say these children are less worthy than that the president had his way over one hundred ten thousand new jerseyans would lose their coverage and tens of thousands more across the nation would lose their coverage i find that morally reprehensible i find it ironic that the president doesn't want to cover parents of this program considering the fact that since two thousand and one it was his administration that granted twenty four waivers for adult coverage in fifteen states including my home state of new jersey in fact when i waiver was issued in two thousand and three to new jersey the administrator of c m s the federal agency that supervises the program said quote new jersey is setting an example of how federal waivers can help them cut into the numbers of citizens with no health care coverage tom scully the administrator c m s the federal agency overseeing this program were setting an example in two thousand and four president bush made a promise to insure all of the nation's children but his latest proposal would only serve to cut children and increase the number of uninsured rather than adding to the ranks of the uninsured we should be working together to expand access to even more children and families mr president it's time to make good on your word it's time to make good on your promise it's time to cover all children at the end of the day this bill is about law no income and working families getting much needed care this is about our nation's children having access to a doctor for preventative care and receiving treatments for more serious conditions this is about the health and safety of current and future generations so there's only one question left to be asked is this good for our nation's children the answer is yes let me close with a great republican i admire abraham lincoln he said quote a child is a person who is going to carry on with you have started he and i would add she is going to sit where you are sitting and when you are gone to tend to those things which you think are important you may adopt all the policies you please but how they carried out depends on that child it will assume control of your cities states and nations all your books are going to be judged praise or condemned by then the fate of humanity is in their hands i ask my colleagues to now pay attention to our children and support this important bill it is for our children it is for our families it is in pursuit of vive values and it is for the well being of our country and a president  states senate and certainly in the finance committee to madam president you know as as the mother of twin boys myself and i know our presiding officer is the mother of a daughter that's just a year older than my boys we know all too well the importance of reliable health insurance coverage for children my husband and i we've experienced certainly the sleepless nights looking after a sick child but we also have the comfort of knowing that when dawn calms we have the opportunity through health insurance to seek out health care through a pediatrician or if it should be worse to be able to go to the emergency room and know that we are covered to know that we can seek that health care for our children when they need it the most with the confidence that health insurance we can continue to care for their needs  situations like these health insurance coverage is critical not only to the lifelong health of a child but also to a family of mind and i think that's what we're about here today you know our ability as united states senators to be able to step outside the box of being a united states senator and really think about what it means to be a hard working american to be a parent and to not just think of what it means to us as our families as federal employees and what it is we have access to in health care but translating that to the name of all hardworking americans and to understand how important is to them and to their children to news we have to in this debate madam president step outside and put ourselves in the shoes of the hard working americans who need health insurance for their children you know that piece of mind madam president should not only belong to those families who can afford private health insurance it should also belong to working families who are struggling to make ends meet in today's world who are the strength of the fabric of this nation those hard working families who are going to job day in and day out sometimes more than one job two jobs to keep the the needs of their families as was lifted by the senator from new jersey to make sure that their family stays hall but coming to the bottom of that list of that budget  recognizing how expensive health care costs are for their children we need to make sure that the fabric of this nation stay strong and we do so not only by supporting those working families and their children but by  establishing priorities in this country and that's why madam president i rise today to speak on behalf of the state children's health insurance program or children of federal a partnership which today provides much needed health care coverage for more than six million children across this great country in conjunction with medicaid chip has been tremendously successful in reducing the number of uninsured children in mass state and across our country programs inception ten years ago the number of children without health insurance or health care coverage has dropped about one third that's something we can be proud on and that we can build our own during that time i am proud that arkansas has become a national leader in reducing its number of uninsured children from over twenty percent in one thousand nine hundred seven to ten percent today now nearly sixty five thousand of arkansas children currently receive coverage through chip or as we know it in arkansas as our kids first yet despite this success madam president an estimated nine million children still remain uninsured nearly two thirds of them who are already eligible for chip or for medicaid nationwide nine million children madame president those children belong to parents just like us their children their parents caring for them just as we try to care for our children and yet not having the comfort of knowing that their health care needs could be and should be covered and certainly proud that the senate finance committee has recently taken steps to reach more of these children and i do so want to commend my colleagues chairman baucus and senator grassley senator rockefeller senator hatch as well as their staffs for the incredible dedication the vision and leadership that they have shown on this issue they are there to hire less energy of sticking with coming together to bring about a compromise and much needed compromise the extraordinary effort that they have put forth particularly over the past few months has made renewal of chip much more of a reality for america's families the reauthorization package that was overwhelmingly approved in our finance committee by the vote of seventeen to four applies the lesson of the past ten years and it builds upon the successes of the program by giving states more of the tools that they need preserving their flexibility to strengthen their programs and ultimately cover more children in doing so it would provide an additional thirty five billion over five years that will allow states to preserve coverage for the children that are currently enrolled while reaching an additional three point two million uninsured low income children madam president this proposal would also provide much needed funding to states for outreach an enrollment effort to reach many of those that are currently uninsured and yet eligible and it also takes steps to ensure they get a healthy start by providing care for pregnant women and establishing pediatric quality measures to improve the level inefficiency of the care that they do receive how important it is as we've begun in this country to look at the quality measures of health care but take usually for our elderly why is it not equally as important to look at the quality measures for the pediatric care that goes to our children have long supported improving access to health care coverage for pregnant women not only because it is vital to the health of both mothers and infants but also because it often reduces future health care costs what an incredible return on our money to see a mother of an expectant mother going to full term to deliver a child that has and much greater opportunity to perform to be healthy and to be less costly later in life due to health care needs in fact it was reported in two thousand and five that the socioeconomic call medical educational and lost productivity associated with pre term birth in the united states was at least twenty six point two billion dollars every year more than five hundred thousand infants are born prematurely an increasing number that now affects nearly one out of every eight babies this is a particular concern to me because in recent reports more than thirteen percent of birth in our state of arkansas all were premature ranking among the states with the highest incidence of pre term babies madam president so many of us have been faced with those choices i know when i served in the house of representatives and my husband and i were so excited to receive the news that we were expecting twins i also received the news that at my age and certainly in the work environment that i was am and all of the pressures that i was also at risk for a premature delivery and i had the opportunity i had the wonderful opportunity to make the decision that i wouldn't run for reelection and that i could minimize my job in order to do everything within my power to bring those children into this world in a safe manner now look across this country and not all working mothers have that opportunity they don't have those choices to be able to step aside and do everything that they possibly could with the health care that they receive to bring those babies into this world in the healthiest of fashion one thing we can do madam president is to provide them the prenatal care that they need the advice and the consultation to be able to do what they can to ensure that those babies are delivered after a full term but taking needed steps to improve access to care for pregnant women and i'm confident that i'm president that we can make strides to improve health outcomes for them and for their children and if in fact we don't want to do it for the sake of bringing healthy babies into this world who are going to be the future leaders of this great country we should do it as an investment the long term investment of a healthier child being born makes so much since then the long term cost of a premature delivery and the health care needs that that child would need for the rest of their life the finance committee proposal would also provide the federal authority and resources to invest in the development and testing of quality measures for children's health care you know madam president we have out of one hundred forty six medical schools in this country  every one of them has a department of pediatrics we can make an incredible investment an incredible investment in quality measures that would give us not only the outcome that we want but also the cost savings in overall health care that we so much desire this provision would help ensure that states and other payers providers and consumers have the clinical quality measures that they need to and improve the quality and performance of children's health care services additionally the bill before us would allow some states to use income eligibility information from other federal programs such as school lunch programs to speed up the enrollment of eligible to older and into chipper medicaid and the senator from new mexico has done so much hard work on this expressed way of making good common sense out of the mounds and mounds of paperwork that people already have to fill out using the knowledge that we already know and those mounds of paperwork to get those children in rolled in the programs that they already qualify for it would simplify the administrative process for states and certainly madam president reduce the paperwork burdens on our families the bill would also provide greater access to much needed dental care for lower income children and would ensure that children enrolled and chip would have access to mental health care that is on par with the level of medical and surgical care they're currently provided by the president as we look at our children and their growth understanding the unbelievable as sensual in dental care not only so that our children can get the nutrition they need but they can pay attention in school they can get the education they need that allows him to grow and be a part of this incredible nation in a productive way the success of chip over the past ten years is itself a great example of the things that we can accomplish when we reach out across the aisle when we work in a bipartisan way when we come together on our priorities and really put aside the partisan differences this bipartisan proposal we are considering today is another we should all agree that providing health care for our children is certainly one area where partisan politics should be placed aside there is no room for partisan politics as we address our children after all it is a moral issue i'd invest money in our nation's most precious resource our children investment in a future of our country its leadership and its productivity who could disagree with that and as we move forward together to reauthorize a successful program i am hopeful that we can do so in the same bat partisan spirit that was demonstrated in the create creation of this program the tin year implementation of this program and in the recent reauthorization of this program in the finance committee it's unfortunate madam president that that the president and the secretary of health and human services feel differently in fact their proposal to increase the chip funding by only five billion over the next five years falls so so short of the funding needed to simply maintain coverage of those currently enrolled in the program to justify their proposal the administration actually klein that the number of uninsured children in our nation was only twenty percent of the estimated estimates calculated by the nonpartisan instead of forcing over a million children a million children to be dropped from their current health insurance provider shouldn't we all agree that at the very least absolutely no child should lose coverage as a reauthorization the president has been adamant about leaving no child behind when it comes to their education but shouldn't we apply this to their health care as well should we recognize that the reasons are a part of the reason our no child left behind in education has been less productive is because we failed to provide the resources the much needed resources to implement good policy basic polic it's fine to talk about these things madam president but if we don't put our money where our mouth is the health care doesn't get to the children that need it moreover should we all move forward and covering as many of the non million uninsured children that we possibly can finding the middle ground as we've done in the finance committee i wholeheartedly believe and that's why i rise in strong support of this legislation madam president some of my colleagues of rice concerns about our efforts to expand the successful program they have argued that the thirty five billion compromise that was reached in the finance committee is too much money but you know what it's going to cost us something to cover more children and let's take a step back and get some perspective on how much money we're actually talking about our current proposal to reauthorize chip provides a total of sixty billion dollars over five years twenty five billion in the baseline with an increase of thirty five billion in contrast our operations in iraq are now estimated to cost taxpayers tin billion per month so for the amount of money non budgeted money that we now spend in iraq every six months we can cover an estimated ten million lower income children with much needed health care for five years five years madam president and we're talking about money that is completely offset a program that is completely paid for how you spend your money this goes for families and for government we all have to look at where our priorities are in our own families and we  senators and stewards of this land and this great country and of the resources they are have got to set priorities as well and they should reflect our values our values and our priorities so i have my colleagues today what could be a bigger priority than the well being of our nation's most precious resource that's our children and look at our families the families who are the fabric of this country one of the things they need the most madam president is time time to be a family to sit down to dinner with their children to be able to go to a p t a meeting or a parent teacher conference to take a small vacation to care for an aging parent they need time to do that and i got to tell you madam president it's not it's not easy to find that time and if you're a single parent perhaps a single mom even if you're a working family a lower income working families working two or three jobs to be able to hit that budget that the senator from new jersey talks about to make sure that you can hit all those issues that you've got to deal with whether it's real or groceries or or or certainly any type of health care that you could access it takes time time out of our families and the time that they need to build strong families to keep their children whole and focused on the good values that we want our children to have minimum wage was a great example minimum wage was much needed over ten years and not having seen that increase but what an important role it played in providing our families greater time to be a family in a time when more and more americans are struggling to find affordable health care chip is allowed us to make coverage more accessible for millions of children cover critical to the lifelong health of a child and to a family's piece of man are urged each and every one of my colleagues to explore your own conscience not just thinking about your family but thinking about the millions of american families out there today who want nothing left for their children then what we want for ours to set aside partisan influences and to support this critical effort to invest in the health care of our children not only for the future of our nation but for the wealth of millions of american children in working class lower income families than president they are depending on us the stewards of this body the stewards of this country and it's time that we fulfill our commitment to their arch my colleagues to join me in supporting legislation to expand health care coverage for children i've been and to really show who it is we are and what it is we're made of on behalf of america's children thank you madam president and yield the floor thank you ms senator from oregon is recognized before she leaves the floor let me just thank my seatmate on the senate finance committee for a passionate and eloquent address on behalf of this country's children i commend her for it and then i'm president i would ask unanimous consent that the time between now and twelve thirty be divided equally between the senator from new mexico senator bingaman and the senator from new jersey senator lautenberg without objection so ordered madam president i have twelve unanimous consent request for committees to meet during today's session of the senate to have the approval of the majority and minority leaders i would ask consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record without objection so ordered the senator from new mexico to recognize the president could with the chair please taking this time on the senate floor to bring the reauthorization of the children's health and ensure urns program to the senate at this time since this program was created through a bipartisan effort in one thousand nine hundred seven the number of uninsured americans has grown by millions but at the same time the percentage of low income children in the united states without health care coverage has fallen by a third so this is this is a remarkable achievement and this program is a large share of the reason for that achievement the program is critically important to my home state of new mexico currently permits the state to cover over fourteen thousand low income to mexicans who will play a critical role in ensuring that all low income to mexicans have access to meaningful health care coverage i strongly support the reauthorization that we've reported from the finance committee of the many issues before the senate i believe reauthorizing this legislation needs to be at the top of our  list unfortunately there seems to be a huge gap between what the administration would like to see done on the subject and what in fact is needed the president has proposed such a small sum of new funding over the next five years  a billion dollars per year of additional funding that if we were to accept that proposal we would have a significant reduction in the size of the program the number of children covered by the program instead of reaching a larger percent of the nine million uninsured children in our nation the president's proposal would not add to that to the percentage of the number of children covered in fact that would result in hundreds of  in a selfless and bipartisan way to come up with a proposal that they could embrace and that they could bring to the full senate the congressional budget office estimates that the thirty five billion dollars over five years authorized in this legislation will fill in the shortfalls in funding that have plagued the program for many years it will allow us to expand coverage to nearly four million additional low income children though i strongly support this bipartisan compromise there are several aspects of the legislation that i hope we can we can still strengthen as we move forward first of course i would like to see greater funding than the thirty five billion over the next five years of that that are called for in this legislation such funding the if we could go to the full fifty billion that we provided for in the budget resolution and that i believe the house is trying to enact we could expand coverage to an additional five million children that would remain uninsured at the bill's current funding levels so there are ways we can improve this bill i'm also disappointed in way in changes that were made to coverage for adult populations in this program i will not oppose the compromises that were reached on the issue but i firmly believe that the reauthorization of the program should not result in the narrowing of the flexibility that states have had through this program to cover uninsured populations including adults and protector let me just discuss a little of the rhetoric that has that is circulated around this subject coverage of adults is very important to the efforts of my state and other states are efforts to cover low income parents and childless adults but in fact this program is overwhelmingly a program that's focused on providing coverage to children less than ten percent of the coverage under the ash chip program currently goes to two adults i believe that that that has been somewhat taken out of context by many who discuss the issue we should also note the states are relying on waivers in covering the adults that are covered under the program states are relying on waivers most of which were approved and authorized in in this bush administration to cover these populations these are not these are not democratic proposed waivers these are waivers that a republican administration has approved tommy thompson our former secretary of health and human services under president bush in his first term stated in two thousand and five a poll in approving new mexico's ability to cover adult populations quote here's here's this is quote here this approval means health coverage for tens of thousands of uninsured new mexico residents including many uninsured parents whose children are already covered by giving states like new mexico greater flexibility in the way they provide health care  minutes remaining i think the chair the president let me let me also go to one other issue which which i think is important to deal with church shortfall in this legislation and that is the failure of the program to provide dental coverage according to the children's dental health project of the four million children born each year in the united states more than a quarter of them will have cavities by the time their toddlers more than half will have cavities by the time they reach the second grade this is concentrated in low income rural children who suffer disproportionately from these problems i believe strongly that the the children's health insurance program should be expanded to cover dental dental care for children across this country low income children this is something we are were not able to do as part of this legislation but i hope we can revisit this issue before final action is taken and a final issue i wanted to discuss relates to the important improvements in legislation i hope we can make for an illegal immigrant children and legal pregnant women under current law these individuals are prohibited from receiving most chip or medicaid coverage for the first five years that they are resident here in the united states illegal basis very often these children and these legal pregnant  s citizen children i would point out will become eligible for chip and medicaid it's it is counterproductive to prevent these illegal immigrants from accessing services at the time that  they become legal residents of our country this there's a five year bar in place today to them receiving medicaid and chip cover ridge 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 contribute significantly to the system but they are barred from receiving the services that they are subsidizing i highlighted that legislation to remove this five year bar i want to highlight that this this proposal to remove the five year bar has bipartisan support it's passed the senate as part of the two thousand and three medicare modernization act and i hope very much that before we complete action and send the bill to the president we can we can deal with this issue here so i urge each member of the senate to focus on what is the important work that we can accomplish here in the senate how can we help the lives of children growing up in this country how can we make them more productive citizens in the future expanding this health care coverage to cover more children is obviously the first and best thing we can do i hope very much we can pass this bill go to conference with the house come up with a bill that the president can be persuaded to sign and though i think it's quite apparent that we even need more than this generous attempt to meet our needs the fact it is it's a very good bill but it is surprising to me that we even have to debate this bill as we stand here there are nine million kids in the united states without health insurance two hundred fifty thousand of them live in my state in new jersey every day that we wait to reauthorize and expand the children's health insurance program we risk more children's illnesses and even permitting them to die because they have no health care in two thousand and ten there's going to be more than eighty three million children from newborns to nineteen year olds growing up in america we have an obligation to make sure that those boys and girls have health insurance so they can see their doctor get a prescription or visit a hospital if they need to and that's exactly what the chip children's health insurance program helps them do it will ensure that kids have insurance to get regular checkups to pay for emergencies or to fight illnesses such as diabetes and other things that afflict children terribly through their lives children without insurance are two times twice as likely to die from injuries while they stay in the hospital than children who have insurance twelve percent of children either delay getting care or don't get any care at all because their families just can't pay for it and it's simply not right if those children it's those children who need the program this program the most but this vital children's health program is set to expire in september thirtieth so to me since from now the children's health insurance program is the way the only way that six million of america's children can afford health insurance and their parents are typically hard working people but they simply cannot afford expensive private insurance and they make too much money to qualify for medicaid for example in new jersey our state program helps to keep a hundred and twenty six thousand low income children and good health considering how many kids the program is keeping healthy in new jersey and across the nation we would expect that president bush would keep this program healthy but he has without more money we can't cover the young people who currently get children's health insurance and we cannot get any new children no matter how much they need so the ranks of the insured by two thousand and nine states will be facing more financial shortfalls they'll be forced to cut coverage for our kids is unacceptable so the senate is offering a better bipartisan plan and i'm proud to support the children's health insurance  which honors baucus and grassley introduced in the finance committee approved this bipartisan bill would provide thirty five billion dollars in new funding and most of us would have preferred even higher levels of funding fifty billion dollars and i plan to support amendments to increase the funding amount but they can't be any doubt this bipartisan compromise that we have before us is a cruise will step forward in improving children's health it would maintain insurance for the six million children who are time is covered and it would insure more than three million new kids who don't have any health insurance at all now so it also continue giving states flexibility in covering these youngsters and we know that the cost of living on the cost of health care varies from state to state and it must be a consideration in covering president bush ran on a pledge to get their hands more kids on health insurance but instead of pledging to sign the bipartisan senate bill it's incredibly true that president bush is threatening to veto it a veto means putting millions of children is at risk for elephant disease it means going back on the president's pledge and it shows by his actions more than his words that the president's priorities are not the same as america's president bush's lopsided tax cuts are projected to cost two hundred fifty two billion dollars in two thousand made alone and that i'm president we spent three billion dollars a week this war three billion dollars a week and we have supplementals and between there we've already spent more than a half a trillion dollars on this war and when you think about it for only thirty five billion dollars more over five years seven billion dollars a year to provide for children's health that's roughly two months of keeping this war going and then those five years we could keep millions of kids healthy help them become productive members of our american society martin luther king said and here i quote of all forms of injustice inequality in health care is the most shocking and then humane so that mildred millions of children go without health insurance is an absolute injustice to stand by while they get sick in china cannot afford care is shocking and humane we are the wealthiest country in the world we also should be the healthiest country in the world but we don't seem to be able to tie in these domestic needs with the opportunity that faces us despite shortage of revenues because we can become so generous with people who theirs in terms of their taxes those who make a million dollars a year get tax cuts that are substantial and so it does cut into our revenues and so as i mentioned before th i hope all of my colleagues will support this bipartisan baucus grassley bill and lastly we've played with the president keep his promise not to veto it but adam present senator from new jersey