(via e-mail)
August 30, 2007

Greetings from the Brethren Witness/Washington Office:

Urgent: Your Elected Officials Need to Hear From You Today. Tell Them to Cover All Nine Million Uninsured Children Before Time Runs Out!

Congress returns soon to session (Sept. 4) and will decide whether or not millions of children in America will have the health coverage they need to reach their God-given potential in life. Over the past decade, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has been effective at reducing the number of uninsured children.

However, nine million children are still uninsured, millions more are underinsured, and the number of uninsured children is on the rise — government data indicates that the number of uninsured children increased by 294,000 from 2004 to 2005.

Funding for SCHIP expires this year (Sept. 30) and at any moment Congress will consider renewing the Program and ultimately decide how many children will remain uninsured. People of faith and conscience have a moral obligation to send Congress the message that anything less than health coverage for all children is unacceptable.

Take a few minutes right now to make sure your voice is heard!

• Send emails to your Senators and Representative - Tell them they must use this opportunity to expand and improve children’s health coverage so that all children and pregnant women – not just some – are guaranteed comprehensive, easy-to-obtain health and mental health coverage.
• Call your Senators and Representative (1-800-861-5343 this number will direct you to your Elected Officials’ office through your address) continuously until they publicly support the following principals:
  • Ensure that all children and pregnant women have health coverage and access to timely health care.
  • Guarantee all children and pregnant women comprehensive health coverage for all medically necessary services regardless of where they live.
  • Simplify the application process, institute true automatic enrollment, and ensure eligibility for a full year to make it easy all children to get covered and stay covered.

The PICO National Network has set up an petition page where you can sign on as clergy and as individuals to make your voice known to our President who is threatening veto to any improved SCHIP program and to congress who has the power to make such improvements.

Visit their website at http://ga3.org/campaign/sayYEStochildren to sign the petition.

September 30 is fast approaching.

In 1989 the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference affirmed the right to healthcare for all with the following statement (in part), “Throughout the Scriptures, God calls for justice and fairness for all people. Therefore, it seems particularly clear that in the richest nation on earth God expects access to adequate health care to be a basic right for all citizens [children], regardless of gender, race, [age] or financial status. While good health cannot be assured to everyone, good health care can and should be guaranteed.” To review the entire statement please visit our website and click on the link to Brethren policy.

Brethren Witness/Washington Office Contact Information

If you have questions on these or other issues, contact the Brethren Witness/Washington Office at the address below. We would love to hear from you!

Brethren Witness/Washington Office Action Alerts are sent out as important issues arise. Forward this alert to others! To add an e-mail address to our list, contact us at:

Brethren Witness/Washington Office
337 North Carolina Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20003
Local Phone: 202-546-3202
Toll Free: 1-800-785-3246
Fax: 202-544-5852
E-mail: washington_office_gb@brethren.org