Children's Defense Fund
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, January 11, 2007
CONTACT: Nayyera Haq
202-662-3592
   

CHILDREN’S DEFENSE FUND ANNOUNCES
PLAN TO COVER 9 MILLION UNINSURED CHILDREN
CDF Offers Legislative Approach That Streamlines Federal Programs to Expand Coverage and Access to Health Care for All Children

 WASHINGTON, DC The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) today 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. “It is a shame that more than 9 million children in America―the richest nation in the world―still do not have health care coverage. 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.  Millions more are underinsured. 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. 

According to a Hart Research poll conducted for CDF, more than three-fourths of Americans think it is “important” or “extremely important” for elected leaders in Washington to focus on providing health care for all children in America.  Almost 7 in 10 Americans think the federal government is doing “too little” to help children who do not have health insurance coverage. CDF’s proposal would simplify and consolidate children’s health coverage under Medicaid and SCHIP into a single program that guarantees children in all 50 states and the District of Columbia all medically necessary services.

“Health care coverage for all children is indeed the smart thing to do and Washington has fallen behind what the country wants,” continued Edelman. “Children are our future and by far the most cost-effective investment.  How we take care of our children speaks to our very values as a society.  We should do it, we can do it, and with the help of Congress, all children will have health care coverage by next year.”

A summary of CDF’s proposal can be accessed at www.childrensdefense.org/healthychild.

 

 

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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.

 

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