Today President Obama signed into law the new State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill. This bill extends healthcare coverage to 4 million uninsured children beyond the original 7 million covered by the program.
As a “downpayment on (his) promise to cover every American” it isn’t a bad start. Those 4 million kids are about 9% of the 45 million uninsured Americans. The bill passed the House overwhelmingly today as it has twice during George Bush’s presidency – the only difference being that it was not vetoed this time.
If we can get that much done in the first fifteen days of this new administration, perhaps we can get more done in the next 1,400.