State Children’s Health Insurance Program

Dear Friends,

Some of you know that our family, at one time, nearly lived at East Tennessee Children's Hospital. We were fighting. Specifically, we were fighting leukemia and for the life of our youngest child.

The first night there we were in a daze. I remember few specifics, just a few phrases;

"The good news is that it is ALL not AML."
"Treatment is about 2 or 2 1/2 years."
"Out of school."
"Want to reach remission in a month."
"Survive."

But one other important phrase I remember was this,
"Our hospital does not do wallet biopsies."

Since that time I have served on a committee for the hospital. Today, I received a request from them. Sign this petition they said.

You can read on if you'd like more information, but to me it's a no-brainer. I want this hospital to continue to say to people like me who are in a daze, who are scared beyond measure, and who may, unlike our family, have no good group insurance, "We don't do wallet biopsies."

So sign!

"The National Association of Children’s Hospitals (N.A.C.H.) and its 140 member hospitals applaud the leadership of Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), Ranking Republican Charles Grassley (R-IA), Health Subcommittee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-WV) and Health Subcommittee Ranking Republican Orrin Hatch (R-UT) in producing a solid, bipartisan bill to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Congress should act now to reauthorize SCHIP.

"Chairman Baucus’ mark builds on the current successes of both SCHIP and Medicaid, which together cover more than one in four children in the U.S. The bill creates the potential to cover more than 3 million additional children under Medicaid and SCHIP.

"Importantly, it invests in the development of pediatric specific measures of health care quality for children and provides funding for demonstrations of techniques to improve children’s health care quality — an investment that is sorely needed since the federal government has not invested in improving pediatric care while it heavily invests in improving care for adults.
Finally, the bill increases funding for every state, providing the opportunity for each state to enroll more eligible children, while establishing contingency funds to reduce the risk of state shortfalls that have plagued many SCHIP programs in recent years."

BRD