[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 125 (Wednesday, August 1, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H9283]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SCHIP
(Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute.)
Mr. EMANUEL. Madam Speaker, in 2002, when I was campaigning for
Congress, I met Dolores Sweeney, who had three children. She worked
full time at an insurance company, was too rich for Medicaid and too
poor to get her own private insurance because her company didn't
provide it.
Today, her three children are enrolled in SCHIP. Those kids, today,
have health care because we did right, where, between private sector
not providing health care and Medicaid, a woman who worked full time
did right by her children, got healthcare for her kids, and her 19-
year-old today is going to college and doing the right choices.
The question we have before us, as my colleague from South Carolina
just asked, are we going to provide our constituents with the
healthcare that our own children and Members of Congress get, that
taxpayers pay for? That is the question that is going to be before us
today: Are we going to do right by the Dolores Sweeneys of the world in
the same way that our constituents do right by us, as Members of
Congress, and for our own children? These are people who have worked
full time, at no fault of their own, whose children don't have health
care. And we will provide those children, 11 million children, the
health care that their parents cannot provide.
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