From the transcript of the Connecticut Senate - June 5, 2007:

"THE CLERK:

Calling from Senate Agenda No. 5, order of the evening, Senate Bill, Emergency Certified Bill 1484, An Act Concerning the HealthFirst Connecticut and Healthy Kids Initiatives.

The bill is accompanied by Emergency Certification, signed Donald E. Williams, Jr. , President Pro Tempore of the Senate, James A. Amann, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

THE CHAIR:

Senator Handley.

SEN. HANDLEY:

Thank you, Mr. President. I move passage of the Emergency Certification bill, Senate Bill 1484.

THE CHAIR:

Acting on approval of the bill, Ma'am, will you remark further?

SEN. HANDLEY:

Yes, I will. This is a bill that has been carefully worked on for a great many months in this Chamber and by a great many people.

Many Committees have taken part in providing elements of the bill, and a great many other folks have given their advice and their direction to those of us who have been working on this bill. And I'm very happy to present this bill to the Circle this evening.

Our ultimate goal, as we have been talking about for a long time, is to expand access to healthcare for the uninsured in Connecticut to the point where everyone in this state will have access to healthcare, where no one will be going without medical care because of the position they find themselves in.

This is a start in that direction, and there is another Emergency Certification bill in the House, which is also working in the same direction. This bill has many sections, and I'm asking, I will be yielding the floor to several people who have played a part in this work.

But I'd like to just give an overview as we begin. The first thing that we are attempting to do is to stretch the programs that we have, particularly our Medicaid, our SCHIP, the HUSKY plan, to encompass as many of the unemployed, particularly children and their parents, as we possibly can.

We're also working to expand access through the expansion of federally qualified health clinics and school-based health clinics. We are also working to expand access by increasing the funds that we will be paying to health providers who work in the system that we have.

And we are also working to improve our ability to deal with folks who are sick, or who are well, through the use of technology.

And there are several aspects of this bill which make very important use of modern technology that should have a very important effect on the way in which healthcare is delivered and the way in which healthcare is examined in this state.

And then, finally, part of this bill is looking to the future to develop programs to extend healthcare to everyone in the state. We know that this plan will not accomplish that goal, but we have set up mechanisms in order to achieve that goal."

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From the debate on a bill to allow children of immigrants who attend Connecticut high schools for four years and then graduate to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities - transcript of the Connecticut Senate - June 1, 2007:

SEN. HANDLEY:

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise in support of this bill. And to comment, really to follow up with Senator Prague's comments. I taught, as all of you know, for 30 years at community colleges.

And a great many of my students at the community colleges were either immigrants or the children of immigrants. I have no way of knowing whether their status was that of a documented immigrant or an undocumented immigrant, because we're really talking about people and talking about their behavior.

Most of the folks that we know who are here as immigrants are desperately anxious to become good citizens of our state or our country regardless of how they got here.

They're people who come here because they want to work, because they want to achieve the American dream, and because they want their children, most of all they want their children to succeed. Anything that we can do to help those children succeed and to make their lives and our lives better is certainly to our benefit.

I often point out when I taught American history, you know, that all of us, all of us are the children of immigrants including the Native Americans who came from probably Mongolia across to Alaska and so forth.

And none of us really know exactly, well, maybe some of us do, but I certainly don't know how my grandmother got here from Ireland. She got on a boat in [inaudible] and maybe she landed in Boston, but a lot of folks landed up in Nova Scotia and in Montreal and then made their way across the border down to Boston and finally to Manchester.

We really don't know. A great deal is made of this distinction between the documented status and the undocumented status. I think we maybe don't pay enough attention to the rest of he behavior of the folks who are here.

Most of the folks who come here are paying taxes. They're working. They're here to work. They're paying taxes. They're working. They're raising their children, they're looking forward to the best lives that they can have for themselves and their children.

And it seems to me this is our responsibility to provide in this very, it's almost a symbolic way, in this very modest way another gateway for children of immigrants to become increasingly productive members of our society. So I urge acceptance of passage of this bill.