Let's get those lifesavers out of storage!
"I never thought I would find myself in need of this program. But, I have. With my husband not working and health care benefits skyrocketing, I just can't pay for it anymore. I have applied for healthy kids insurance and I pray that my kids get the coverage. Paying $500 per month just for their coverage is no longer possible for our family. This care is so important for our children."
--Tracie C.
A refreshing moment of sanity and bi-partisan action prevailed in Washington, D.C. last month when Congress and President Obama enacted legislation that gives states additional money to provide children with healthcare coverage through the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). It's a huge victory for kids and a testimony to the power of every day moms and dads to get Congress moving on issues that are crucial to families.
This critical lifesaver for families is coming not a minute too soon. Each week, hundreds of thousands of parents are losing their jobs and employer-sponsored healthcare coverage, and so are their children. Now, more than ever, families need this support.
We have much to celebrate in the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and economic recovery program. But our work is not done -- it's now up to legislators in each state to take advantage of all possible federal money to provide health coverage for kids. The federal government has provided the life preservers for our kids but they won't do us any good tucked away in storage! It's up to our state legislators to throw these lifesavers to our kids.
Now, you'd think it'd be a slam dunk...the money is available, and what legislator doesn't want more money for their state? But there may not be any slamming or dunking. California, for example, demonstrates the challenges our states face in making this promise of children's health coverage a reality. Right now, California's state healthcare program, Healthy Families, is bursting at the seams with 30,000 children enrolling every month. Yet, due to record budget deficits, the state is considering cutting essential social services and not making long-term investments such as health care coverage for kids.
We must demand that our state leaders do their part to put our kids first. If you live in California, join MomsRising.org's campaign [http://www.momsrising.org/lifesaver_messages] to send sweet and tart personalized messages to California legislators that healthcare for kids is a lifesaver for families. We're delivering these messages and real candy lifesavers to each and every state legislator. To participate, all you need to do is sign on to our message, "Healthcare coverage for kids is a lifesaver for families! Do your part to ensure healthcare coverage for all kids."
The federal government has given our states an opportunity to cover uninsured kids and bring badly-needed federal funds into our states. Now, we must make sure that our state leaders take advantage of this opportunity to move kids' health care forward.
A Peaceful Revolution is a blog about innovative ideas to strengthen America's families through public policies, business practices, and cultural change. Done in collaboration with MomsRising.org, read a new post here each week.
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Grow up and do whatever is needed to make things happen, don't rely on the government.
You forgot potato chips, the most expensive, bad-for-you non-food item in the grocery store (next to Coke and Pepsi both sugared and 'diet' -- both will cause a heart attack).
BUT -- BUT IF the government DOES NOT provide health care for everyone (just as it provides fire department care and police department care and fix-the-streets care) people will continue to go broke with the back-breaking fees to health insurance companies (which use 1/3 of that for profits, CEOs bonuses, and unnecessary bureaucracy) and the costs of health care which they can't afford -- or continue to die due to being jettisoned from a health insurance plan.
What we need is national, universal health insurance coverage for all. Exactly like Medicare for people over 65 or the disabled. But we need it for everybody. When children get good medical care -- paid for -- that is great! But when their parents are sick and die the children don't have parents to take care of them. That is bad. parents, everyone who falls in the middle, need to have -- not just 'affordable health care', which eats up most of their salaries, but paid-for health care like in most European countries and Canada. That is the only thing that makes spiritual, physical and economic sense!
No...we must demand that our state leaders do their part to ensure health care for EVERYONE. Kids are not more important than any other human being!! ENOUGH!
That is NOT universal health care, that is elitist health care, with the implication that the feeble elderly (alzheimers and dementia) or the chronically ill (cancer, lukemia) or the millions with congenital birth defects (MD, MS, CP, Spina Bifida) have no place in this world of super human charles atlas mutants that are worried about "preventative care" and not worried about treating conditions that already exist
It must be nice to live in the feel good Mr Roger's Neighborhood where everyone is expected to live into your 80's with nothing more to worry about but a broken arm or a stubbed toe, usually brought on by your own or someone else's carelessness.