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No child left behind …except the 8.6 million who are still uninsured

Posted by: Jenny Sullivan on Oct 30, 2008

Last year, Congress tried - without success - to renew thepopular and successful State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and toexpand it so another 4 million uninsured kids could gain health coverage. TheBush Administration criedwolf, complaining about crowd-out (replacing private coverage with publiccoverage), socialized medicine, and the "$83,000 family." The President thenvetoed the CHIP bill. Twice. So Congress reluctantly just extended the program(without significant new federal funding) until March 31, 2009.

Currently, 8.6 million kids remain uninsured.

So what do we know about these kids who don't have healthinsurance? Over the next few weeks, Families USA will be releasing a seriesof state reports about uninsured kids. These reports,drawing on new data from the Census Bureau, will feature the number ofuninsured children in each state. They will also include surprising informationabout the families uninsured children come from. For instance, the majority ofuninsured children-regardless of the state-have at least one working parent.And more than half of uninsured children in most states also have a parent whoworks full-time.

Medicaid and CHIP are an essential source of quality,affordable care for these hard-working families. Congress and the nextAdministration can take two quick, easy steps to make sure the programs arethere for the growing number of families coping with economic hardship in thecurrent recession. First, Congressshould pass a stimulus bill that includes a temporary boost to state Medicaid funding;this will ensure that services don't get cut as states try to trim theirbudgets. Second, Congress must reauthorizeCHIP and, equally importantly, must provide enough funding to cover the kidscurrently enrolled and to let states reach out and offer coverage to even more ofthe millions of uninsured children.

Uninsured children may not be in the headlines now,but it's still just as important as it was last year - if not more so, givenour economic crisis - to make sure that they can get the health care they needto be healthy, learn in school, and grow up to be productive citizens. Andthey're waiting. It's time to stop leaving these children behind and take theactions necessary to ensure that all American children get the healthy startthey deserve.