Obama Signs Initiative of The Children Health Into Law

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama claimed the second major legislative victory of his young administration Wednesday, signing a bill to provide federal funding for health care, an estimated 4 million children.

The final version of the new law which extends the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by approximately $ 35 million over the next five years, after a sharply polarized House of Representatives early in the day, with almost all voters to Democrats for the expansion and most Republicans oppose it.

With the bill, Obama said at a White House ceremony, "We met one of the highest that we have responsibilities - to ensure the health and welfare of the children of our nation."

The president said the bill was one of his early "commitment to cover every American."

SCHIP expansion is Obama's second major legislative victory in less than a week. The first was on Thursday the approval of the Lilly Ledbetter Pay Equity Act, which makes it easier to sue employers for wage-based discrimination.

The expansion is also a sign of the strength of Washington's new Democratic majority. Former President George W. Bush vetoed two similar bills in health care, 2007, arguing that the legislation would encourage families to leave the private insurance market funded by the federal government, state-run program.

Before approving the bill, SCHIP covered about 7 million children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid - the federal health insurance program for the poor - but who can not afford private insurance.

The new law increases the total funding for SCHIP approximately $ 60 billion. The expanded program will be financed with a 62-cent per-pack increase in the federal tax on cigarettes.

"This is a day worthy of celebration. ... There is no greater cause to protect the welfare of the children of our nation," New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the law's primary House author, said shortly before the final approval the bill in a 290-135 vote.

Overcoming the expansion of the health program is "morally the right thing by our children," said Rep. Tom Perriello years, D-Virginia. "At a time when the cost of health care is crushing to the families ... this is an important experience."

Opponents of the legislation argued that, among other things, would allow illegal immigrants access to taxpayer funded health care, and is not sufficiently funded.

"This is going out of control like all the other [right] programs, and pay our children," Rep. Jack Linder, R-Georgia, told the House during debate on Wednesday.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, pulled the bill as a "foundation stone for the socialization of medicine in the United States," arguing that raising the income limit SCHIP eligibility to serve as the basis for a massive expansion of the government-run health care.

The Senate approved the expansion of the Friday in a 66-32 vote. All the votes against the project were Republicans, while nine Republicans voted for the measure.