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Children's Defense Fund Welcomes Health Coalition's Commitment to Covering Children First |
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While applauding HCCU's stated goal to cover all children, CDF President Marian Wright Edelman noted that the details of the HCCU proposal fall significantly short of achieving this goal. By contrast, the proposal released by CDF last week does provide health care coverage to all children. "CDF welcomes the commitment to covering children first and is particularly pleased the HCCU proposal includes two key components: eliminating some of the barriers and red tape that block access for children who are currently eligible for coverage and eliminating the ceiling on federal funding to provide health care coverage for these children," said Edelman. CDF supports the key reasons cited in the HCCU proposal for why it makes sense to focus on covering children first: there is strong public support for covering children; it is less expensive to cover children than adults; covering children will create the infrastructure needed to extend coverage to adults; and the timing is ripe with the reauthorization of SCHIP funding. But while the HCCU plan takes modest steps to provide for currently eligible children, millions of additional children would remain uninsured. CDF's plan would expand eligibility to all children with family incomes at or below 300% of the federal poverty level ($60,000 for a family of four). Does not guarantee coverage for SCHIP children. Does not eliminate other barriers to enrolling and continued enrollment. "There are a number of other proposals to address these additional challenges and we need to combine the best of all to get the job done right.
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