Chris Jennings, who was a Clinton healthcare adviser during her years as the wife of a president, said Clinton had been a longtime and tireless advocate for expanding children's healthcare, and Jennings was baffled by suggestions that she had not been instrumental in getting the plan approved. Jennings noted that SCHIP was indeed adopted, in a second attempt, that same year.
"She was very proactive. At every step of the way, she was always pushing" for the concept of expanding healthcare for children, Jennings said.
From an August 11, 2000, New York Times article:
Among her other accomplishments, Mrs. Clinton said she helped to initiate and promote the Children's Health Insurance Program, created by Congress in 1997 to provide $24 billion over five years to states to insure children.
"She was a one-woman army inside the White House to get this done," Mr. Littlefield of the Health, Education and Labor Committee said. He said that he and Senator Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who was the major force behind the bill, enlisted Mrs. Clinton's help in the spring of 1997 when the president became "skittish" about the program. Mr. Littlefield said the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, was threatening that it was a "deal buster" on the balanced budget agreement that he and Mr. Clinton had reached.
"At that point we went to Mrs. Clinton and said, 'You've got to get the president to come around on this thing,' " Mr. Littlefield said. "And she said, 'Absolutely.' And we very quickly noticed a change. The president was very much on board."
And for support, they reference a 1997 Washington Times article entitled, "Budget a back door to 'Clintoncare'; Children's health insurance is similar to coverage pushed by Hillary in '93"
Excerpts:
"The $23.4 billion "Kid Care" health insurance program included in the budget package was to be the "precursor" to universal health care sought by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in a secret White House fallback plan prepared in April 1993, according to internal administration documents.
"The plan signed into law yesterday by Mr. Clinton and pushed by the first lady is a duplicate of the 4-year-old health care task force idea, except that it is paid for by a 15-cent tax on cigarettes.
"One of the co-authors of the plan, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, credited Mrs. Clinton for her 'invaluable help, both in the fashioning and the shaping of the program.'
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