Congress’ Urgent Unfinished Business For Children

As if our battle to forestall the profoundly unjust Tax Cuts and Jobs Act used to be now not sufficient, we will have to all paintings onerous to make sure there shall be no unfinished industry as Congress works to wrap up the Continuing Resolution earlier than December 22nd with the entire a very powerful lend a hand kids and different susceptible populations want. Entire teams of kids and households’ well-being are in danger with out motion. The Continuing Resolution will have to come with 5 years prolonged investment for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP); house visiting toughen for babies and children and different small children during the Maternal and Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting Program; toughen for Dreamers and long term Dreamers, younger individuals who got here right here as kids and face possibility of deportation; and desperately wanted lend a hand for storm sufferers in Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. All are a very powerful for kids and teenagers and feature bipartisan toughen. These don’t seem to be new wishes or requests and Congress must act on them with urgency.

Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP): For 20 years CHIP has given running households the protection of understanding their kids had get admission to to high quality, child-appropriate reasonably priced well being protection. CHIP has helped minimize in part the collection of uninsured kids, progressed youngster well being results and get admission to to care, helped scale back college absenteeism and progressed kids’s readiness to be informed. CHIP is a lifeline for eight.nine million kids whose households earn an excessive amount of to qualify for Medicaid however now not sufficient to shop for personal protection. CHIP and Medicaid are the root of our well being care gadget for kids.

Although CHIP started with and continues to have bipartisan toughen, partisan politicking about pay for it helps to keep blockading the best way. CHIP investment is 76 days past due and a patchwork of brief help will now not paintings. Colorado and Virginia started sending letters to households this month caution that with out renewed federal cash, CHIP protection would lead to January. Texas and Connecticut plan identical notices this month. Although Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) used to be some of the unique sponsors of CHIP and is a constant CHIP champion, Utah introduced it’s going to finish CHIP in January if Congress does now not in finding the cash. West Virginia’s CHIP board voted to finish it February 28 and 30 states will exhaust CHIP price range by means of March. How insufferable the worry oldsters really feel will have to be as cancellation notices hit their mailboxes right through the vacations.

Brooke, a Texas mom of 3, is a church youngster care supplier and her husband is a mechanic. She places it this manner: “Having health insurance through CHIP has meant that my kids are healthy, my family is more financially stable, and my husband and I don’t stay up nights worrying about how to pay our medical bills. My middle daughter was diagnosed six years ago with OCD [Obsessive Compulsive Disorder] and anxiety. We’ve had years of treatment with therapists and doctors to teach her coping mechanisms and give her the medications she needed. She’s now healthy and happy, does so well in school and has improved so much. Without CHIP we never would’ve been able to afford the care she needed and she’d still be struggling . . . If CHIP gets cancelled I don’t know what we’ll do. It’s not like we have a spendy life – we’ve cut everything we can as it is. I’m not sure what we’d choose to go without to pay for our family’s medical needs.”

There shall be tens of millions of households like Brooke’s in Texas and nationally. Children will omit physician appointments and move with out medicine. Pregnant girls will lose prenatal care. Ongoing remedies will forestall. Congress will have to in an instant reauthorize CHIP for 5 years with out making damaging cuts in different systems serving kids and households to pay for it.

Maternal and Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV): Pregnant girls and youngsters below 5 get pleasure from MIECHV in each and every state and territory. It has had bipartisan toughen since its 2010 enactment however its products and services and jobs shall be misplaced if Congress doesn’t renew it in an instant. MIECHV-funded systems use evidence-based voluntary house visiting fashions that will have to show measurable enhancements on no less than 4 of six benchmarks – enhancements in maternal and new child well being, discounts in abuse and forget and adolescence accidents, progressed college readiness and success, relief in crime or home violence, progressed circle of relatives financial self-sufficiency and referral for different group sources and helps. Families in in danger city and rural communities dealing with possibility components like substance abuse or youngster abuse and forget are given precedence for products and services. MIECHV will have to be reauthorized for 5 years no less than at its present investment stage of $400 million.

Dreamers and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program: Dreamers and long term Dreamers are younger undocumented immigrants delivered to this nation as kids who’ve handed background exams, long gone to college, met different necessities and give a contribution to their communities each day regardless that paintings, research and repair. They experience sturdy bipartisan toughen and settlement that they will have to now not be deported. Nearly 800,000 immigrants had been granted coverage from deportation below DACA, which President Trump has set to finish in March. Beginning March fifth, 1,000 Dreamers will lose coverage each day. Announcing DACA’s finish, President Trump requested Congress to offer those Dreamers everlasting prison standing. These protections will have to be preserved.

Emergency Relief for Children, Families and Others Struggling from Hurricane Destruction: Children in Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are nonetheless affected by devastating hurricanes. Children’s well being and schooling are at nice possibility, particularly in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Many are suffering and surviving with out electrical energy and water and plenty of faculties stay closed. Additional emergency investment is lengthy past due!

Rather than a very powerful lend a hand for kids and teenagers, the Administration and Congress had been pushing for large tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and robust companies. In this holy season celebrating the beginning of a deficient child in a manger, it is a travesty. In a season when Christians imagine sensible and robust males gave their items to a deficient child at the first Christmas, we will have to all inform our leaders they will have to give our country’s deficient, in poor health, and maximum susceptible kids the issues they urgently want to live to tell the tale and thrive.