House Democrats unveiled their health care reform bill this week. The bill seeks to expand health care coverage to the approximately 40 million Americans who are currently uninsured by lowering the cost of health care and making the system more efficient. It includes a new government-run insurance plan to compete with the private companies, a requirement that all Americans have health insurance, and a prohibition on denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

A new study finds disparities between poor, at-risk children and more advantaged children as early as 9 months of age - extending prior research that primarily focuses on disparities at kindergarten entry and beyond. It identifies low income and low maternal education as the factors most strongly associated with poorer cognitive, social-emotional, and health outcomes among very young children.

A new report from the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics tracks 40 key indicators measuring children’s economic circumstances, health, physical environment and safety, family and social environment, behavior, and education. Some troubling statistics include: In 2007, the poverty rate for children rose from 17% to 18% from the previous year and 12.4 million children in America - or 17% of all kids - live in households that are food-insecure.

On July 10, 2009 the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education ("Labor-H") appropriations subcommittee voted on Chairman Obey's plan. The full committee markup is scheduled for this week.

The Coalition on Human Needs says that if Congress is considering health care reform proposals that scale back benefits or eligibility, it is because Congress is hearing from special interests and not enough from constituents. Ultimately, getting health care reform right depends on raising revenues in a way that spreads the burden fairly. You can tell your Senators and Representatives to do health care right, with CHN's online letter campaign.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that proposals being considered by the Senate Finance Committee to change subsidies that help low and moderate-income families afford health insurance could push more poor families out of the system.

The National Immigration Law Center warns that, so far, there are no proposals as part of health care reform to remove the five year waiting period and other barriers to Medicaid for most legal immigrants, including children.

President Obama recently announced a new summer service initiative in partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service. Local service projects can find volunteers and volunteers can find projects in education, health, energy, the environment and more.

About 60 percent of the federal stimulus money is going to states and localities for health and education. Track how states are managing the red tape and using the money, with the help of these new Stateline.org reports.

These findings are from a new report released by Families USA, The Clock Is Ticking: More Americans Losing Health Coverage , which further makes the case for the urgency of action on health reform.

This new report provides the first ever state-by-state data on the number of people who are expected to lose health coverage between the beginning of 2008 and the end of 2010. Numbers are broken down per week, per month, and per year.