"America's Agenda: Health Care for Kids," a non-partisan organization of labor and business leaders, has launched a TV and mail campaign aimed at persuading a divided Congress to approve legislation regarding the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
The TV and print ads urge members of the Senate and House of Representatives who voted for the SCHIP legislation - which was vetoed by President George Bush last year - to "keep fighting to insure our kids." The legislation is designed to extend coverage to another 3 million low-income children
"The SCHIP program has been an enormous success, giving millions of poor kids a chance to start out healthy in life," said Doug Dority, president of Health Care for Kids. "Thanks to SCHIP, more than 6.6 million children now have health insurance. Yet 9 million more American children still lack healthcare coverage they need."
"Under this program, children receive the regular checkups they need to stay healthy, and the care and treatment they need when they are sick," Dority said.
Mark Blum, the organization's secretary-treasurer, said the ads will be run "in geographically diverse regions across the country, in districts represented by Democrats and Republicans who stood up for strengthening SCHIP to assure more American kids can get the healthcare they need."
The first round of ads is "a substantial buy of several millions of dollars," Blum said. "We intend to extend the campaign based on our success in raising more funds from more donors."
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, children with insurance fare significantly better than uninsured children on a host of access measures, such as having a usual source of care, fewer delays in care due to cost and number of physician and dental visits.
"The level of federal funding will determine whether states have sufficient funds to continue covering children who are now enrolled and whether they will be able to cover millions of additional children who need decent healthcare," said Dority.
Studies have shown that additional funding to strengthen SCHIP will save money. Researchers at Brigham Young and Arizona State universities have reported it's more costly when children drop out of SCHIP because they shift away from routine care to more frequent and more expensive emergency care.
"Health Care for Kids is a distinct, newly-founded issue advocacy organization," Dority said. "We are launching this issue campaign with a very specific purpose: to persuade Congress to pass the bill that will strengthen and reauthorize SCHIP. This will be a significant step toward achieving our overall mission of guaranteeing affordable, high quality healthcare for all Americans."