[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 15] [Senate] [Pages 20061-20062] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 507 Mr. REID. Mr. President, this is the Vision Care for Kids Act. What this would do is ensure that children get the vision care they need to succeed in school. I think most everybody knows I was born in a little town and raised in a little town--no doctors, no hospital. I was born in a house, not in a hospital. When I went away to high school, which is also a fairly small high school, I was a baseball catcher on the baseball team. When we would move inside to the gym when the weather was very bad, which was not very often in Nevada, and I would be catching, I had trouble picking up the ball. But I thought it was that way for everybody. I thought other people had trouble seeing the ball. It was not until I was a freshman in college that somebody said: You must not be able to see very well. And so as a freshman in college I got a pair of glasses. I will never forget it. I came back to my dormitory; I had never seen green on the hills. I did not know things looked that way. But with my glasses, I could see it was green now. Now I know why I could not see the ball. That is what this is all about, so kids like me have an opportunity maybe to be able to see with glasses or whatever it takes to improve their eyesight. Is this bill going to solve all of those problems? No, but it certainly would help. It would establish a program [[Page 20062]] through the Centers for Disease Control to complement and encourage existing State efforts to improve children's vision care. I am not suggesting to anyone that I was blind. I just didn't see very well, and I didn't know that. I thought everybody was like me. But can you imagine how--I can imagine. I was there. I know. I came home, and I could not believe it. I called my friends: Look, it is green over there. I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 507 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? Mr. COBURN. This bill has never been before the HELP Committee. It has never had a hearing in the Senate. There has been no discharge of this from the committee. We have never even voted on this bill. With that, I plan on objecting until I see exactly what has been offered by the majority leader later today. Mr. REID. Mr. President, this exact language passed the House. This is a Republican bill, Senator Bond. My friend is right, it did not go through the committee. I think Senator Bond is right by being the chief advocate over here. Maybe he can help us with Senator Coburn. But the same thing we had before, it passed overwhelmingly. Maybe after he looks at it, he will allow it to pass later on. ____________________