Blog | September 15, 2017

Senator Bill Frist in Forbes: CHIP Demands Quick, Bipartisan Passage

Former Senate Majority Leader and current senior advisor to Council for a Strong America calls on Congress to reauthorize CHIP

Why would someone give up a career as a full-time surgeon to become an elected official?

It was a question I was asked time and again during my two terms in the U.S. Senate. To me, the answer was always clear: I was searching for a way to make a positive impact on the greatest number of lives.

Surgery certainly provided an avenue for helping others, but it required focusing on one patient at a time. Each time the door to the operating room closed, I never forgot that a patient’s loved ones were sitting just outside, anxiously waiting for news.

There was the single mother who refused to return home while her child was sick, shuttling her tired body between work and the hospital for weeks on end. The little brother bravely holding back tears as he watched his sibling emerge safely from surgery. The father who sat up late at night, medical bills stacked in front of him, wondering if a second mortgage would give him the means he needed to save his child’s life.

I wondered if there was a way to support all of these people – both in times of crisis, and in times of security.

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