Federal
All of America’s children should have the healthcare they need to grow and learn. With fewer employers able to provide healthcare coverage for their workers and their families, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) are critical for our children’s health. Over 860,000 children in New England depend on these two programs, our public healthcare system for children, to receive the health and life-sustaining care they need.

Medicaid and SCHIP have been enormously successful – providing high-quality, accessible healthcare coverage to one in four American children. Since the inception of SCHIP in 1997, Medicaid and SCHIP have worked together to reduce the uninsurance rate of low-income children by nearly one-third at a time when uninsurance rates for adults have increased by close to 14%. Without these critical programs, millions of vulnerable children would be uninsured and go without healthcare.

Similarly, our country’s public health insurance system for children provides critical funding for New England’s outstanding healthcare institutions and our economy. This funding provides a significant portion of the operating budgets of the hospitals that care for our children. Without this funding, hospitals would not be able to maintain the services and level of care that they provide to every child throughout New England.

We must continue to do more – not less – for our children and support these effective healthcare programs by ensuring that SCHIP is fully funded and Medicaid is protected. As the SCHIP program set to expire in 2007, the New England Alliance for Children’s Health is playing a critical role in advocating for the reauthorization of SCHIP and protection of Medicaid.

For a list of the New England delegation, click here.