SCHIP - Need help with Advocacy!!

This message from our Friends at the Virginia Poverty Law Center.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION TODAY!!! OUR CHILDREN NEED YOUR HELP!!

The Senate Finance Committee is expected to report SCHIP legislation before the July 4th recess. And things are getting dicey.

You may have read that HHS released a report stating there are millions fewer uninsured children than previously believed. The response to this report has been angry and swift.

This should get your blood boiling and motivate you to write a letter to the editor and call our Senators again to support:

1. $50 billion in new funding for SCHIP (and Medicaid) over the next 5 years. Funding should come from an increase in federal tobacco taxes and the elimination of overpayments to Medicare Advantage Plans (which cost at least 12% more per patient than traditional Medicare)
2. Restore flexibility to states to determine how they want to verify citizenship and identity of Medicaid applicants. Virginia’s net enrollment of Medicaid children is still 10,000 lower than a year ago, as a result of the unduly restrictive federal documentation requirements.
3. Restore flexibility to states to cover more legal immigrant children and legal immigrant pregnant women.

Please take action TODAY!

Senator John Warner (R) 202-224-2023 202-224-6295 http://www.warner.senate.gov/

Senator Jim Webb (D) 202-224-4024 202-228-6363 http://www.webb.senate.gov/

Thanks!

Jill