United Way commends Congress for its swift passage of legislation to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and applauds President Obama for promptly signing into law the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Act of 2009. Providing children with access to health care services is absolutely essential to our nation’s health, especially during the current economic crisis. United Way’s 10-year health goal is to increase by one-third the number of youth and adults who are healthy and avoid risky behavior with a key indicator of the goal being the number of children under the age of 18 who are not covered by health insurance.
Many of the provisions included in the reauthorization bill, including an expansion of eligibility requirements and enhanced outreach efforts, will help move us closer to fulfilling this important goal. Specifically, the legislation will result in 4.1 million additional children having access to health care while all children under the program will have access to improved mental health and dental services. Currently, nine million children in the U.S. do not have health insurance. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a proven jointly financed Federal and State program that has dramatically reduced the number of uninsured children in the U.S. since its inception in 1997. Unfortunately, inadequate program funding previously contributed to millions of children being left uninsured who were otherwise eligible for SCHIP coverage. Thus, it is no surprise that SCHIP is one of United Way’s top public policy priorities.
United Way of America (UWA) and the system as a whole have urged Congress to significantly expand SCHIP for more than 3 years. While UWA’s public policy team has work tirelessly (along with many of our coalition partners) to improve access to essential health care services for our children, the efforts of the entire United Way system, including the many calls and letters to Congressional offices by local United Ways, were instrumental to securing passage of this important legislation...read more...
