ChIP IN

More low-income children have health insurance coverage now than ever before. That’s a sentence worth savoring, and defending.

How did this happen? It’s the result of millions of little actions. Someone made a phone call, someone funded an outreaach worker, someone sent an e-mail, someone donated to the cause. It was a wonderful array of people doing something that would benefit millions of kids.

A new report, Applying Advocacy Skills in Tumultuous Times: Adaptive Capacity of Insuring America’s Children Grantees, provides a behind-the-scenes look at how one important effort focused advocates in many states on a common goal of children’s coverage. The effort was called Insuring America’s Children and it was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

In Texas, the funding helped the Children’s Defense Fund work with the Center for Public Policy Priorities and Texans Care For Children on numerous public education events and campaigns. I’ve shared with you much of their work in the past.

A couple of things in the report really called out to me:

Texas’ uninsured kids have been fortunate to have such a collaborative effort fighting for them that leverages a boots-on-the-ground strategy.

The California-based Packard Foundation — for some reason — thought Texas kids were important enough to fight for.

The advocacy work in Texas cascaded into thousands of actions, and although we still face opponents of children’s coverage here, we know we have a network to draw on to help us make the right arguments and bust through the myths.

So on that note, let us speak up for other children, too. Last week, The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to eliminate performance bonuses for states that streamline their Medicaid and CHIP procedures and reduce red tape so that more eligible low-income children can get and keep health coverage. To be clear — Texas has never received these bonuses because we haven’t done the streamling required.

Unfortunately, Texas Cong. Joe Barton is leading the charge on slashing this funding — click here to read more.

If you’re in Barton’s district let him know that states that receive these bonuses are implementing technology solutions and lowering barriers to insure kids who have been uninsured. This is worthwhile and keeps kids from being uninsured.