FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, April 26, 2007
For Media Assistance

Business, Children's Advocates and Families Testified on the Need to Cover All Children

Sacramento, CA – The effort to insure all of California's children has taken an important step forward as AB 1 (Laird & Dymally), a bill sponsored by Californians for Healthy Kids (comprised of the 100% Campaign and PICO California) passed out of the Assembly Health Committee last night. Today, SB 32 (Steinberg), a similar bill, will be heard in the Senate Health Committee.

AB 1 and SB 32 will finish the job of ensuring that all California children have access to health insurance so that they may grow up healthy and strong. The legislation would also ease the enrollment process for families and help keep children covered for as long as they are eligible.

Almost 93 percent of children in California are currently insured. Of the remaining 763,000 uninsured kids, more than half already qualify for existing programs like Healthy Families and Medi-Cal. These bills build on the success of Medi-Cal and Healthy Families and improve access to coverage by ensuring currently eligible children enroll and extending eligibility to children who do not currently qualify. AB1 and SB 32 provide a template to draw from as we continue our conversation on how to bring health coverage to all children in California.

"We applaud the leadership of Assemblymembers Laird and Dymally and Senator Steinberg in championing health coverage for children and working to ensure that children are a top priority in the health care reform debate," stated Ted Lempert, president of Children Now. "With just over 7 percent of children left to insure, the job is doable and affordable and must get done this year."

Statewide polls continue to show strong majority support for covering all children in California. We urge state leaders to match this support by making health coverage for all children a reality during this legislative session.

"Any meaningful healthcare reform must include covering all kids, and it must be accomplished this year," said Judy Darnell, state advocacy director for United Way's Covering California's Children campaign. "There is consensus among business leaders, health advocates, children's advocates, educators, elected officials and others that covering all kids is not only the right thing to do, but it's politically feasible. Our kids shouldn't have to wait any longer."

The 100% Campaign, a collaborative effort of Children Now, Children's Defense Fund and The Children's Partnership, with primary funding from The California Endowment, was created to ensure that all of California's children obtain the health coverage they need to grow up strong and healthy.

The PICO California Project is the united effort of 20 California congregation-community organizations affiliated with the PICO National Network. Collectively, we represent 350 congregations and 400,000 families statewide and are actively organizing in over 70 cities in Northern and Southern California.

United Ways of California is a state association of local United Ways and is a strong advocate of finding a statewide solution to cover all kids in this state. United Ways work closely with local community and business leaders, legislators and others to promote this achievable and important goal.