Reply #34: The NYT article on S-CHIP gives the history and Kerry/Kennedy was the root of it [View All]

[karynnj]

"But even with the success of the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, the best that Mr. Kennedy and other supporters of child health insurance had expected at the start of the 105th Congress was that they could put the issue back on the political map.

Not long before last fall's elections, Mr. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, the junior Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, introduced a bill that proposed paying for health insurance for uninsured children through a tobacco tax, a law that was already in place in their state. Throughout the fall and into the end of 1996, Mr. Kennedy notified a string of Republican senators in an effort to bring them aboard, among them John H. Chafee of Rhode Island, Mike DeWine of Ohio, John McCain of Arizona and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

The common link among those Republicans, a Democratic aide said, was that ''they had voted against the tobacco lobby in the past and they were open to children's health insurance.''

Mr. Kennedy ultimately teamed with Mr. Hatch, a conservative with whom the liberal from Massachusetts had worked closely in the past and whose Mormon beliefs had made him an ardent foe of tobacco and supporter of children's legislation. "

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980DEFDC113CF932A2575BC0A961958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=2

This article did credit Hillary for pushing when Bill Clinton seemed to get cold feet.

Another earlier story spoke of Kennedy and Kerry wanting to take the MA idea to the national level

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02E3DA1231F93BA15751C0A961958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=2