Through Art, Kids Urge Legislators to Promote Children’s Health Care

With the Senate poised to take a pivotal vote on SCHIP (State Children Health Insurance Program), young people are on Capitol Hill exhibiting their powerful artwork. The “America’s Future Starts with Healthy Children” art exhibit is a timely reminder that swift action needs to be taken so that no child is waiting for health care. Collected from 24 states, nearly 400 students submitted original, hand-drawn art work.62 of the pieces were selected to be displayed in Washington, D.C.

View exhibit items

Pre-Kinder to Grade 3

Grades 4 to 6

Grades 7 to 9

Grades 10 to 12

The exhibit received enthusiastic support at the Friday, January 23 unveiling at the Rayburn House Office Building and the Capitol Visitors Center. From Monday, January 26 to Wednesday, January 28, the public can see the artwork at Union Station, West Hall. The entire exhibit is also available for viewing online at www.iwanttobehealthytoo.org.

Today, 1 out of 9 children in the U.S. cannot see a doctor because they do not have health insurance. The art exhibits are a culmination of a larger effort by many communities to educate and organize for children’s health care. Building up to this moment, the Health Rights Organizing Project SCHIP Subcommittee led by the Korean Resource Center (KRC), National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), and the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations (NWFCO), collected 8,000 petitions over the summer of 2008 and organized legislative visits to deliver the petitions to Congressional leadership and presidential candidates.

President Obama signed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) legislation in an East Room ceremony at the White House.
Washington, DC : 22 min.

President Obama holding the art exhibit brochure at the bill signing

The final version of the new law, which expands the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by roughly $35 billion over the next five years, passed a sharply polarized House of Representatives earlier in the day, with almost every Democrat voting in favor of the expansion and most Republicans opposing it.

With the bill, Obama said at a White House ceremony, “We fulfill one of the highest responsibilities that we have — to ensure the health and well-being of our nation’s children.”

The president said the bill was a downpayment on his “commitment to cover every single American.”

The SCHIP expansion is Obama’s second major legislative win in less than a week. The first was Thursday’s approval of the Lilly Ledbetter Pay Equity Act, which makes it easier to sue employers for wage-based discrimination.

The expansion is also a sign of the strength of Washington’s new Democratic majority. Former President George W. Bush vetoed two similar health care bills in 2007, arguing that the legislation would encourage families to leave the private insurance market for the federally funded, state-run program.

Before the bill’s passage, SCHIP covered almost 7 million children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid — the federal health insurance program for the poor — but who can’t afford private insurance.

The new law boosts total SCHIP funding to approximately $60 billion. The expanded program will be financed with a 62-cent-per-pack increase in the federal tax on cigarettes.

“This is a day worthy of celebration. There can be no greater cause … than protecting the well-being of our nation’s children,” New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the legislation’s primary House author, said shortly before the bill’s final passage on a 290-135 vote.

Passing the health program’s expansion is “morally the right thing to do by our children,” said freshman Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Virginia. “At a time when the cost of health care is crushing America’s families … this is an important lifeline.”

Opponents of the legislation argued that, among other things, it will allow undocumented immigrants to illegally access taxpayer-financed health care, and is insufficiently funded.

“This will go out of control just like all the other [entitlement] programs have, and our children will pay,” Rep. Jack Linder, R-Georgia, warned during the House debate Wednesday.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, ripped the bill as a “foundation stone for socialized medicine in the United States,” arguing that raising the income limit for SCHIP eligibility will serve as the basis for a massive expansion of government-run health care.

The Senate passed the expansion Friday in a 66-32 vote. All those voting against the bill were Republicans, though nine Republicans voted in favor of the measure.

January 23, 2009 - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid joined Senator John Rockefeller, Gerald Smith, Associate Director of the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations, and student artist Ibrahim Muhammad at a press conference today to discuss Democrats’ efforts to strengthen the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Democrats are working to pass a bill similar to the ones vetoed by President Bush last Congress that will improve the lives of low-income, uninsured children by ensuring they get the doctor visits and medicines they need when they’re sick and the checkups they need to stay well. The event also featured artwork submitted by students from around the nation highlighting the importance of providing health coverage to children.

“CHIP is a critical program as states begin to run out of money for children’s health care – in the state of Nevada alone more than 100,000 children remain uninsured,” Reid said. “We will enact a bipartisan bill that improves the lives of uninsured children by ensuring they get the doctor visits and medicines they need when they’re sick and the checkups they need to stay well. Not only is passing CHIP the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do.” Said Rockefeller: “This isn’t about politics, this is about children and it’s about doing what’s right. With our nation’s economy in crisis and Americans facing the uncertainty that comes with losing their jobs and their health insurance, health care coverage for all children is more important than ever before. Medicaid and CHIP are a critical safety net for working families and their children during these extremely hard economic times. In the years since we created CHIP, millions of America’s children have received needed, and in many instances life-saving, care. It is time to provide that vital coverage to even more of our children, including legal immigrant children. I am eager to finally finish this important mission and give nearly 11 million children the care they need and deserve.” Senate Democrats will act quickly to ensure that America’s children have the health care they need.

With the Senate poised to take a pivotal vote on “S-CHIP,” the state health care program for children, a group of youngsters were at Union Station lobbying on behalf of their peers in their own unique way. They are exhibiting powerful artwork at Union Station, part of an effort to raise adult awareness about health care. Their art will be on display at Union Station through Wednesday.

Stephanie Kaye reports…

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Check out the drawings of Vijeyta Revankar and Gary Olguin, who are interviewed at the coverage.

1/23 Press Conference at the Capitol Visitor's Center

At Our Premiere Unveiling with Min-Ji, Ibrahim, Paris, Ali, Rebecca, William, Ethan, and Christian: Kids Promoting Healthcare for All Kids

1/23 Unveiling at the Rayburn House Office Buildings

At Our Press Conference with Senators Reid and Rockefeller: Ibrahim Says It’s Not Fair that Some Kids Have Healthcare, and Others Don’t

1/23 Press Conference at the Capitol Visitor's Center

1/23 Press Conference at the Capitol Visitor's Center

1/23 Press Conference at the Capitol Visitor's Center

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE, EMAIL ALL RESPONSES TO HUYNH@NILC.ORG.

A FIRST STEP TOWARDS ACHIEVING EQUITY IN HEALTH CARE:
NEW CONGRESS PLANS ACTION THIS WEEK ON IMMIGRANT CHILDREN’S HEALTH

Immediate Action Needed: Call Senators to Urge Support for ICHIA

ICHIA up for debate again this week

This week, Congress is planning to vote on bills to expand children’s health care through a new reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). While it is necessary for Congress to reauthorize SCHIP before current funding expires in March 2009, it is imperative that Congress passes a 2009 SCHIP bill that demonstrates our nation’s priorities to children’s access to health care and our commitment to a fair and equitable health care system that ensures all children have an opportunity to become healthy citizens.

Under current law, legal immigrant children and pregnant women must wait five years before they become eligible for federally funded Medicaid and SCHIP. Americans believe this waiting period is wrong and want it eliminated.[1] Congress can address this inequity by including the Legal Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act (ICHIA) in the 2009 SCHIP reauthorization bill.[2] Moreover, in these difficult economic times, Congress should be finding ways to help America’s working families and states with tight budgets. ICHIA would provide fiscal relief to families as well as states and would be a key component of a strong health reform foundation. Congress needs to pass ICHIA now, and demonstrate its commitment to children and a health care system that works for all Americans.

Timing

The U.S. House of Representatives will be voting on a new SCHIP bill as early as Wednesday, January 14. There is strong support for including ICHIA in the House version of a SCHIP bill. The Senate is working on its SCHIP bill with a vote likely later this week. As in the past, a minority of Senators threaten to use anti-immigrant tactics to block inclusion of ICHIA in what should only be a debate about how best to provide health care to America’s children.

Your voice is needed today to ensure that key members of the Senate hear that we want all children to have the opportunity to be healthy and to remove archaic barriers such as the five year bar.

Action Needed:

As of today, the Senate Finance Committee plans to send SCHIP to the full Senate on Thursday without ICHIA. Please immediately contact the following Finance Committee members. Tell these Senate Finance Committee Members that the Senate’s SCHIP bill MUST INCLUDE ICHIA.
For additional talking points on ICHIA, see here.

Senate Finance Committee Members

Member has been supportive in the past but has not confirmed support this year:

Max Baucus (D-MT), Chair
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Member’s current position on ICHIA is unknown:
Charles Grassley (R-IA), Ranking Member
Ken Salazar (D-CO)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
John Ensign (R-NV)

The following members are supportive and have indicated they will vote “Yes” to ICHIA:
John Rockefeller (D-WV), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), John Kerry (D-MA), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). If you have time, please thank them for their support.

For contact information for Senate Finance Members, please go to the website link below, scroll down, click on the member, call their office, and ask to speak to the HEALTH staff. http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/committees.tt?commid=sfina

Other Members:

If you have additional time, please call your own two Senators and your Representative and let them know that their support for inclusion of ICHIA in SCHIP this week will be critical to the future of all children, not just immigrant children.

Thanks for all your help - it is critical Congress hears from all of you! We are close to the finish line and we need everyone’s help to make this happen this year!

________________________________________________________________

For more information, contact Dinah Wiley, Public Benefits Policy Attorney, at wiley@nilc.org, or Sonal Ambegaokar, Health Policy Attorney, at ambegaokar@nilc.org.

[1] In a November 2008 poll, more than three out of four Americans favor ending the five-year waiting period for Medicaid and SCHIP which immigrant children and pregnant women are subjected to by law. For more information about the poll, see www.firstfocus.net/pages/3540/New_Poll_Shows_Widespread_Support_for_Healthcare_for_Every_Child.htm

[2] Under current federal law, lawfully residing pregnant women and children who have entered the country since August 22, 1996 are barred from Medicaid and SCHIP for five years. This restriction is not only on its face discriminatory, but has clearly increased racial and ethnic health disparities among children in the U.S. The Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act (ICHIA, S.764, H.R.1308) would eliminate the waiting period and address health disparities. ICHIA has long-standing bipartisan support and strong support from hundreds of national and state organizations. For more information about ICHIA, go to: www.nilc.org/immspbs/cdev/ICHIA/index.htm

A Wakelon Elementary School student is one of four in the nation who have earned a trip to Washington after winning an art contest.

Ibrahim Muhammad of Knightdale, a fourth-grader, will have his work displayed in the America’s Future Starts with Healthy Children art exhibit.

Sixty-one original drawings and paintings will be displayed starting Jan. 23 in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington. And four of the artists — Ibrahim and students from California, Colorado and Texas — will be in Washington for the unveilings.

The art exhibit is a creative expression by children urging swift action to secure child care for children. It is organized by the Health Rights Organizing Project.