After weeks of debate, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee just passed legislation to transform our broken health care system. And the House of Representatives recently introduced a similar bill which will be debated in three key committees.

These are major steps forward for health care reform.

Both the Senate HELP Committee and House bills propose significant health care advances that would:

(1) End discriminatory practices by insurance companies that deny coverage to people based on pre-existing conditions, or charge higher rates because of gender or health status;
(2) Help make coverage more affordable by capping families' out-of-pocket costs and providing subsidies for low-income families; and
(3) Keep costs under control by getting more for our health care dollars, for example by rewarding doctors for quality (not quantity) of services provided.

We applaud this progress, but the fight continues. There is still a long way to go in both the Senate and the House!

The House is preparing to mark-up health reform legislation in all three committees with oversight over the issue and the Senate Finance Committee is releasing their draft this week or next. We are very concerned about the possibility of children being left worse off in the legislation and need to keep raising awareness about the important issues for children in health reform. We have drafted the following sign-on letter to the House and Senate.

If your organization would like to sign-on to this letter to the House and Senate, please reply to signon@firstfocus.net or contact Cate Hodgetts at catherineh@firstfocus.net if you have any questions or need additional information. Thanks so much for your consideration!!!

By providing state Medicaid programs with $87 billion in fiscal relief, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) is likely to be effective in preventing many large Medicaid cutbacks. Targeting 35% of assistance to states with particularly high unemployment rates, ARRA will provide more "bang for the buck" in preventing state cutbacks and stimulating the economy than did fiscal relief legislation in 2004, which gave all states the same level of help.

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.