Proposed SCHIP legislation to cover all uninsured kids?

by Leigh Graham · 2009-01-13 12:00:00 UTC
Topics:

Congressional Democrats are moving to fulfill one of President-Elect Obama's campaign promises: to provide health insurance for all children. Their first step? Passing an expanded SCHIP program, which would provide health insurance for 10m low-income children in the U.S.  This legislation would also restore health coverage for low-income immigrant children who reside legally in the U.S.; these children and pregnant immigrant women lost these benefits in 1996.

This is terrific news, and a bill we as anti-poverty activists need to rally around quickly.  The above details are from the more liberal and generous House version; currently, the Senate bill does not include the provisions for pregnant women and the half a million legally immigrant low-income children who lack healthcare.

We have a moral as well as socio-economic imperative to pass this legislation.  From the NY Times article:

Among children, legal immigrants are less likely than citizens to receive immunizations and routine dental care. Likewise, among women, legal immigrants are less likely to receive prenatal care.

Leighton C. Ku, a professor of health policy at George Washington University, said the five-year wait had harmed children who would become citizens. “About half of all low-income immigrant children are now uninsured,” Mr. Ku said. “Most immigrant children become U.S. citizens. When they grow up, they make contributions to the economy, pay taxes and serve in the military.”

Those of you who live in VA have an additional assignment, which is to school Rep. Cantor on the "working poor,"  whom in his xenophobic fear-mongering he treats as mutually exclusive from legal immigrants, ignoring that in actuality they are overlapping groups.

The Children's Defense Fund has two smart legislative options for SCHIP (Go Option 1!!) and makes clear what should NOT happen - that children should be left to the vagaries of our 50 state system of providing benefits.

Get involved.  Tell your representatives to pass SCHIP.

(Photo by C. Todd Lopez of children celebrating the Army's 233 birthday, Ft. Myer, VA)

Leigh Graham
PREVIOUS STORY:
Bush on Katrina: "Don't tell me the federal response was slow"
NEXT STORY:
Is the NCAA Putting Student Athletes at Risk?

COMMENTS (1)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.