[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19088]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      HEALTH DISPARITIES AND SCHIP

  (Mr. JEFFERSON asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of increasing 
funding for the SCHIP program and also to address health care 
disparities in my State of Louisiana.
  In 2004, the number of poor children living in Louisiana was 343,256, 
or 30 percent of all children in our State. Forty-seven percent of all 
African American children were listed as poor children, 26 percent of 
American Indian children, 23 percent of Asian children and 24 percent 
Latinos were listed as poor in my State. Of those 343,256 poor 
children, only 91,000 are covered by SCHIP, or as we call it in our 
State, LASCHIP.
  After the storm, coverage for those originally enrolled in the 
Louisiana SCHIP program was not transferred across State lives, leaving 
many of the 251,000 children and adults who evacuated to other places 
without access to the health care they desperately need.
  As former President Nelson Mandela said, ``There can be no keener 
revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its 
children.''
  I hope this House will remember that as we deal with the SCHIP 
funding program this time around.

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