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Press Contact:
Alyson Heyrend
Communications Director
240 East Morris Ave. #235
South Salt Lake, UT 84115
(801) 486-1236 (phone)
(801) 455-5593 (cell)
(801) 486-1417 (fax)
Matheson: Put Children First
Washington D.C.—Congressman Jim Matheson said he’ll keep fighting for legislation to extend a successful children’s health insurance program, despite the disappointing outcome of today’s vote to override the president’s veto. The House failed to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to pass HR 3963 over President Bush’s veto.
“Once again a strong bipartisan majority stood up for doing the right thing today—caring for children. The reality is that many children in families with working parents still need us to come together on a plan, so that they can get the health care they need to thrive,” said Matheson.
Matheson wants to renew and extend the 10-year-old State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), maintaining coverage for 6.5 million kids and offering it to an additional 4 million kids who are eligible. SCHIP is broadly seen as a successful partnership between federal and state governments and private insurers. In Utah, an estimated 74,000 children would benefit. After its implementation in 1997, SCHIP is credited with decreasing the number of uninsured children in this country by one-third.
Matheson said a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute concluded that the percentage of children who are uninsured is larger in Utah than in any other state except Vermont. Most of the Utah children who lost insurance coverage between the years 2001 and 2006 are from low-income working families—precisely the group SCHIP was designed to help.
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