Proud of CHAMP (Rep. Steve Cohen)

The passage of The CHAMP Act by Congress this week is a major step forward in ensuring that America’s children have health care. The CHAMP Act provides health care for 11 million kids – five million who currently lack health insurance and six million who are currently covered by SCHIP – by reauthorizing and improving SCHIP. In 1997, Congress created the Children’s Health Insurance Program with broad bipartisan support.

In addition to increasing the number of children covered by SCHIP, the CHAMP Act strengthens Medicare to ensure beneficiaries’ access to their doctors, expands preventative benefits, mental health services and physical, occupational and speech therapies, reduces costs for seniors and people with disabilities with low incomes, protect consumers, and extends policies that protect access to health care in rural communities.

CHAMP also reverses the Republican drive to privatize Medicare by equalizing payments between traditional Medicare and overpaid private plans.

The 45 cent increase per pack of cigarettes will not only provide revenue but will save tens of thousands of lives and billions in future health care costs by preventing more than a million kids from taking up smoking and reducing adult smoking.

I’m proud that this Congress has seen fit to care for those who are most dependent upon us. It is the responsible thing to do as legislators and as human beings and it fiscally responsible to invest in the health of our children.