Pelosi Floor Statement Urging Override of President's Vet...( WASHINGTON Oct. 18 -- Speaker Na...),Health

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke on the House floor this afternoon urging Members to override the President's veto of the State Children's Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill. Below are her remarks:

"My colleagues, as I listen to the debate today, I hear a lot of subterfuge and distractions, but the fact is that this is a discussion about America's children. And it is a discussion about America. There is no industrialized country in the world that any one respects that does not provide health insurance for its children. We are the exception. Not a designation to be proud of. But the American people in their wisdom have this, not as an issue, but as a value, as an ethic.

"That is why I am so proud of what has transpired since we took our first vote on this bill. That day I said we could establish ourselves as the children's Congress. And we did. The work remains to be done to bring that to fruition.

"But in the meantime across our country, Democrats and Republicans, governors and mayors, people who work with children or have a responsibility of delivering on our system of health care, have been advocating for this reauthorization of SCHIP that we have before us today.

"Our country has put poor children first. The poorest of the poor children in this country are able to receive health care through Medicaid. I wish you could have heard the stories of some of the parents told us. Bethany Wilkerson's parents were in the other day, and the press asked them if they were afraid if their family would come under attack because they were lobbying for SCHIP. 'We are already under attack, but we're proud to come forward to support this initiative,' they said. 'We're not proud of the fact that we are low-income. We're trying very hard to lift ourselves up higher into the middle-class. We work very hard not to be on Medicaid, but to be among the working poor, it's not something we brag about, but SCHIP is somet
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