McMahon co-sponsors SCHIP bill

via press release;

Rep. Michael E. McMahon joined with over sixty-five percent of the House in voting today to pass the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) bill. S-CHIP is critical legislation for New York, which is one of the five states with the largest number of uninsured children. The bill will provided eleven million eligible children with health insurance, including many in the Congressman’s district of Staten Island and Brooklyn, as well as New York City as a whole.

S-CHIP, created in 1997, originally provided health insurance to seven million children in families that did not qualify for Medicaid, but could not afford private health insurance. The bipartisan legislation, which the House voted to reauthorize, renews and improves the original bill by providing health care to an additional four million eligible children. The S-CHIP bill was approved today by a vote of 289 to 139.

Speaking on the floor this morning, Rep. McMahon, a cosponsor of the bill, stated: “Today millions of children from modest income families are not regularly seeing a doctor because they are not enrolled in a children’s health insurance program, even though they are eligible. Today this Congress has an opportunity to change that by passing legislation that will expand the program to four million additional kids.” Noting the need for this legislation as the rate of unemployment rises in the country, Rep. McMahon continued that the bill is “especially important for my home state of New York, which has 402,000 uninsured kids… nearly ten percent of the national total.”

You may recall Fossella previously had voted against SCHIP. Isn't it nice to Rep. McMahon in Washington.