Julia Easley, our good friend and partner at Children's Medical Center Dallas, sent the following our way last week after President Bush vetoed the SCHIP legilation. This message comes to us from one of our best hospitals in Dallas. Read on!
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Last week, President Bush vetoed the SCHIP Reauthorization Act.
Your help is needed again to ask the House of Representatives to override the President's veto.
Background
Congress must reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) this fall. Called CHIP in Texas, the program insures more than 300,000 low-income children including 43,000 Dallas area children.
The SCHIP Reauthorization Act will provide $35 billion over five years to fund an expansion of SCHIP. An additional four million children are expected to be covered under this bill.
Both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate passed the bill by wide, bipartisan majorities last week and sent it to the President. He vetoed the bill.
The next step is for the U.S. House of Representatives to attempt to override the president’s veto, which will require a two-thirds majority vote. Our representatives need to hear loud and clear that we want them to pass the bill and override the veto.
You can help!
Please take just three minutes to write your member of the U.S. House of Representatives and urge them to override the president’s veto and support this vital program for children’s health.
Here's a simple way to write your members of Congress: Go to http://capwiz.com/nach/issues/alert/?alertid=10377536&type=CO.
This link is provided by the National Association of Children's Hospitals.
Follow these steps:
1. Click on the link
2. Enter your zipcode and click Go
3. You will see a prepared message that you can edit if you'd like.
4. Add your name at the bottom and enter your contact information
5. Under hospital affiliation, choose TX-Children's Medical Center Dallas
6. Send your message
7. Share this with others if you'd like
The choice to participate is yours alone.
If you do participate, thank you for volunteering to speak up for the hospital and the children we serve.
For additional information about SCHIP go to: http://www.childrenshospitals.net/nach/schip .
If you would like more information about this campaign, please contact Julia Easley, director of Advocacy at Julia.Easley@Childrens.com.
5 comments:
This was very easy to do and took about one minute. Thank you!
Stephen Colbert (Colbert Report on Comedy Central) had an excellent piece on SCHIP Monday night.
It was a video of 4 kids learning about SCHIP, going back and forth between clips of congress and the kids. The kids were confused at first as various congress members debated the bill. Then a rep. explained in pure English that it was health care for every kid.
The kids became excited when it passed. Their excitement turned to sadness as they saw clips of Bush vetoing the Bill without a meaningful explanation.
Hilarious video, but a sad truth -- that so many kids don't have the basic right of health care.
Thank goodness for YouTube... Here's a link to Colbert's segment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9ubd2HI8VU
The truth is that SCHIP is for poor children. It is not being cut at all, just not expanded to include "children" up to 25 years old and families who make 3-4 times above the poverty rate. What of this don't you understand?
OK, here is your chance.
The Senate is working towards a vote on the new S-CHIP bill.
The YEA-NAY positions are presently 62-33; the bill will need 67 votes to be able to override the President's veto.
Here are the NAY votes - get out your emails
Contact your Senators and Representatives - office staff email addresses:
http://tinyurl.com/2r7q6e
NAYs ---33
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY), Enzi (R-WY)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY), McConnell (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC), Dole (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA), Isakson (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK), Inhofe (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS), Lott (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX), Hutchison (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID), Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC), Graham (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ), McCain (R-AZ)
Martinez (R-FL)
Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Not Voting - 5
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Obama (D-IL)
Warner (R-VA)
Wyden (D-OR)
Following are the office staff email addresses for the above 33 Senators who voted NO on the bill.
http://tinyurl.com/2hhf8e
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