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Veto Snatches Health Care From Needy

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By PAUL HUNT

Published: October 16, 2007

President Franklin Roosevelt, founder of National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (which later became the March of Dimes), wrote in a November 1942 letter to Basil O'Connor, the president of the organization, that '... nothing is closer to my heart than the health of our boys and girls and young men and young women. To me it is one of the front lines of our National Defense.'

Unfortunately, President Bush recently vetoed bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program.

In Florida, 250,000 children are enrolled in CHIP and 761,000 are uninsured. Both houses of Congress approved a bipartisan compromise bill to reauthorize CHIP, which the President vetoed. March of Dimes urges Members of Congress to override this unfortunate veto and enact the bipartisan CHIP Reauthorization Act soon so that states may move forward in covering uninsured children who are already eligible for the program.

The bipartisan legislation vetoed by the president and now before Congress again provides the resources necessary for states to cover an additional 3.8 million children.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, approximately 70 percent of these newly enrolled children come from families earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($34,340 for a family of three). The National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine has shown that helth insurance status is the single most important influence in determining whether health care is accessible to children when they need it.

The bill allows states to enroll pregnant women who meet CHIP income guidelines. Studies have shown health insurance coverage is essential to ensure pregnant women have access to the medical care they need to give their babies a healthy start. Currently, states can enroll pregnant women in CHIP only if they obtain a federal waiver or follow a regulatory approach that fails to cover the scope of clinically recommended maternity care.

I call on our U.S. senators and representatives to override the president's veto of the bipartisan CHIP Reauthorization Act. As President Roosevelt so eloquently said, the health of our children should be a national priority.

Paul Hunt is chair of the state public affairs committee of the March of Dimes.

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