Nine million children in America are uninsured and millions more are underinsured. Every 47 seconds another child is born without health insurance — 1,839 every day.
The consequences of lacking health coverage are dire — uninsured children live sicker and die sooner than insured children. No child should have to suffer because they don't have access to the care they need.
Congress just voted to reauthorize a popular, bipartisan program called the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) that provides health coverage to lower income children. Over the past ten years, SCHIP has provided health coverage to millions of children who would otherwise have been uninsured.
Although Congress' promise to fund SCHIP is a step in the right direction, far too many children will still be left behind. Now is the time to send a message to the Senate, urging them to expand and improve SCHIP to provide comprehensive, easy-to-obtain health and mental health coverage for ALL children and pregnant women.
Please sign the petition to Congress telling them to cover each and EVERY child this year.
Dear [Decision Maker],
On behalf of America's children, I am writing to urge you to support legislation that would cover ALL uninsured children THIS year. Nine million children in America are uninsured and millions more are underinsured. Every 47 seconds another child is born without health insurance - 1,839 every day. Congress can and must put an end to this crisis now.
As a Member of Congress, you have the ability to provide a solution to this problem by supporting legislation to reauthorize SCHIP this year with at least $50 billion in new money and that will:
- Ensure that all children and pregnant women have health coverage and access to timely health care.
- Guarantee all children and pregnant women comprehensive health coverage for all medically necessary services regardless of where they live.
- Simplify the application process, institute true automatic enrollment, and ensure eligibility for a full year to make it easy for all children to get covered and stay covered.
Supporting strong SCHIP reauthorization is your opportunity to expand and improve children's health coverage so that all children and pregnant women - not just some - are guaranteed comprehensive, easy-to-obtain health and mental health coverage. Children cannot wait.
[Your comment here]
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]
