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Children's Defense Fund:
The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) announced a proposal to provide all children in the United States with access to health care, including the more than 9 million children who are currently uninsured.
"This new Congress has a wonderful opportunity to do something real for our children," said CDF Founder and President Marian Wright Edelman.
As Congress considers reauthorizing children's health programs this year, it has a special opportunity to take the next logical, moral, and achievable steps to ensure health and mental health coverage for all children in America as a significant down payment on health coverage for all."
CDF offers its proposal as Congress prepares to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a program that CDF championed in 1996.
Medicaid and SCHIP have made tremendous progress in improving children's health insurance in the past decade, currently providing coverage to over 30 million children.
Yet more than 9 million children in America are still uninsured, almost 90 percent of them living in households with at least one working parent.
Chronic budget shortfalls, often confusing enrollment processes, and dramatic variation in eligibility and coverage from state to state prevent millions of currently eligible children from leading healthy lives and realizing their full potential in school and life.
"Health care coverage for all children is indeed the smart thing to do and Washington has fallen behind what the country wants," continued Edelman.
The Children's Defense Fund's Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.
Posted on January 11, 2007 04:01 PM
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