It's been 107 days since the Republican Congress allowed funding to expire for the Children's Health Insurance Program and community health centers. Here's today's headline about the havoc that is wreaking: “Hospitals, Doctors Brace For Loss Of Children's Health Funds.”
"Much of the high complexity and high cost of care provided to children in the U.S. occurs at dedicated children's hospitals," The Chartis Group's pediatric services leader Brian Thygesen said. "Any reductions in utilization or funding from CHIP will immediately impact the bottom line of the nation's children's hospitals, not to mention the families who will feel the pain first." […]
"A continued delay in passing legislation to fund these programs for the long term is unacceptable—the negative consequences of Congressional inaction already are being felt and will be compounded in the coming weeks," a letter from six doctor groups including the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics says.
"While Congress expresses support for these programs, the failure to provide long-term funding sends a very different message to states and families," the doctor groups wrote Congressional leaders. "Confidence in the future of these vital programs cannot be restored with short-term funding measures, and congressional delays jeopardize the long-term health and wellbeing of patients, providers, states, stakeholders, and our country at large."
Those pleas are falling on deaf ears. Republican leadership is working too hard to prop up the racist in the Oval Office and do his bidding on immigration to spend any time on the nation's children.
Jam the phone lines of House and Senate Republicans. Ruin their holiday weekend. Call (202) 224-3121, and tell them to stop holding kids hostage and to pass a clean funding bill for CHIP and community health centers.