[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 125 (Wednesday, August 1, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H9537]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 SCHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sestak) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SESTAK. Mr. Speaker, I asked to speak this evening on SCHIP, the 
bill that was passed today. Unfortunately, I was unable to be there 
during the day here on the House floor during the debate, but I wanted 
to speak about the importance of it to me personally and why I think it 
is important to this Nation.
  Two years ago this month, or just around this month, having served 31 
years in our military, my 4-year-old daughter, my only daughter, was 
diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and given 3 to 9 months to live. 
We began a series of brain operations and then chemotherapy.
  Down the street in Children's Hospital, we began that treatment, and 
about January when we were done and began to think about what to do 
with the rest of my life, having then retired from the military to live 
with my daughter on an oncology ward, it became very important to me to 
remember what I saw when we began that chemotherapy treatment.
  We were in a small room like anybody else who has been in a hospital. 
We had a roommate. It was a young 2\1/2\-year-old boy here from 
Washington, D.C., who had entered the hospital that day because he had 
been diagnosed with acute leukemia.
  And for about 6 hours as my daughter was undergoing her first 
chemotherapy, vomiting about, as I remember, 19 times that day, we 
could not help but overhear through this thin curtain that separated 
the bed from my daughter's social workers who came and went, working 
with the parents of that young child to see if he might remain there in 
the hospital to be treated for his cancer. And they had to do that 
because he was uninsured.
  Here I had been in the navy for 31 years, and the one time I had a 
personal challenge, and I had many professional challenges, this Nation 
gave my daughter an opportunity.
  I took her pathology slides everywhere, Children's, Mass General, 
John Hopkins, Children's in Philadelphia, and then we sought the best 
out to give her an opportunity, having been challenged for just 3 to 9 
months to live.
  I went away to an 11-month war and never worried that my daughter and 
my wife would be taken care of. I don't understand how that young 
child, 2\1/2\ years old, sitting in that room next to my daughter did 
not have the same opportunity. Where was the Nation for him?
  So, therefore, I just rose to speak today that why I entered the race 
for Congress after 31 years in the military was not, as many assumed, 
because of the Iraqi war, that tragic misadventure, but rather, it was 
to give every child the same opportunity mine had.
  Hubert Humphrey said it well: The moral test of a government is how 
well it takes care of those in the dawn of life, the children; those in 
the twilight of life, the elderly; and those in the shadows of life, 
the sick, the disabled, the handicapped.
  But for me, it was more personal. This Nation was here for me. I owe 
it. And I intend to pay it back by continuing to work for programs like 
SCHIP where that young 2\1/2\-year-old boy, uninsured, had to wait for 
the social workers to convince an administration that he might have the 
opportunity to live.
  That's why SCHIP to me is so important.

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