[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15452]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   IT IS TIME TO REAUTHORIZE THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, in 1997, with a very, very bipartisan 
budget reconciliation deal, we passed a magnificent statement about 
this Nation's commitment to children, and that was the Children's 
Health Insurance Program that all of us were so very proud of. It 
started in 1997 as the first real health reform since Medicare and 
Medicaid, and millions of children were able to get healthcare. Maybe 
at that time their parents could not, but they could be covered: 
children with sickle cell, children with heart defects, children with 
various hereditary or genetic diseases who were impacted, children with 
cancer, leukemia, all of these children, or children injured on a 
playing field, children could be covered.
  It is time to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program. In 
fact, I call upon the leadership to be able to establish martial law so 
that we can pass the reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance 
Program coming this week before we go home.
  The Democrats have been pushing. The leadership of the Democrats have 
been pushing. They have been asking for the passage of the Children's 
Health Insurance Program.
  I can tell you that those, Mr. Speaker, impacted by the hurricanes, 
they need that healthcare. I ask for its passage.

                          ____________________