The Fight for Health Care for All Children

No More Photo Ops

America's children have a video message for conservative congresspeople thinking about sustaining Bush's veto of the SCHIP: No health care for us, no photo-ops for you!

Watch the video!

Support for expanding SCHIP is broad and deep: 81 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of Republicans. Why? Because SCHIP is a government program with a proven record of success. Americans, having common sense, are telling Congress to build on what we know works for our kids.

But conservatism can't abide by responsible and effective government. Conservatives are fine with scare-mongering about "government-run health care" even as they take your taxpayer dollars to subsidize insurance company CEOs instead of using those dollars to keep children healthy.

President Bush wants conservatives in Congress to join him in obstructing progress. We don't have to stand for it, and neither do our kids. Send a message today that you won't.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program

President Bush on October 3 vetoed expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, even though the government program is a proven success with broad bipartisan support. The existing program has been extended through November 16, An attempted House vote to override the veto is scheduled for October 18.

There are 47 million people in America without health insurance, and 9 million of these are children. Of that 9 million, two-thirds qualify for coverage under SCHIP.

SCHIP is designed to cover children whose parents work, but still can't afford insurance. The program gives each state the flexibility to set its own standards, meet its needs, and adapt to local costs of living and insurance.

SCHIP Works

Throughout the years SCHIP has proven to be effective. While the percentage of adults who are uninsured has gone up in recent years, the percentage of uninsured children consistently decreased from 1999-2005, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

That progress began to reverse in 2005. Since then, health care costs have continued to skyrocket. Fewer private employers are offering affordable coverage. And federal funding to the states has not kept pace, making it impossible for states to keep their children healthy.

The moral: When SCHIP is funded properly it works and children get insurance coverage; when it isn't properly funded, they don't.

This isn't a theoretical argument about what's better, public or private. This is tested. It works. It's just common sense to expand it.

"To deny coverage to these children is not only morally wrong, it is profoundly bad public policy.

Denying children health coverage during their formative years leaves them far more vulnerable to preventable diseases, which costs patients, government and taxpayers far more to treat in the future...

But if [Congressional Democrats and Republicans], too, fail to act, 400,000 children in New York — and millions more across America — will continue to rely on the oldest and most precarious health insurance policy of all: waking up every morning and hoping and praying you don't get sick."

— Governor Elliot Spitzer, New York

Click here for more information about SCHIP