Please read on for the Action Alert from National Immigration Law Center (NILC)–
ICHIA: New Congress Plans Action This Week on Immigrant Children’s Health

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.

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News & Observer 1-9-09

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.