Hillary Clinton reached out today using Facebook, Twitter, and email in an effort to salvage the expired Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that she helped establish as First Lady. Nine million children could be left without coverage if Congress does not reauthorize the program.
This Facebook message also appeared on her Twitter account.
There’s a lot to be frustrated by right now, to say the least. Here’s something that we should be able to fix:
The Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health care for 9 million kids and has been reauthorized on a bipartisan basis every year for almost 2 decades, is hanging in limbo because Congress let it expire over 2 months ago. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans rushed to pass so-called tax reform—a giveaway for those who least need it.
It gets worse. During the campaign I warned that the Republicans would come after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and now they are. Imagine buying a Rolex and paying for it with money you saved to take care of your kids. That’s what Congress is doing with your tax dollars.
How is it that in the middle of dividing up $1.5 trillion dollars between corporations and the ultra-wealthy, Republicans can’t find the time & money to take care of children? These are perverse priorities. Congress needs to pass CHIP now, as they have every year since the 1990s.
So in these surreal times, let’s rally together and take action. Call your House and Senate members at 202-224-3121 and tell them to take care of kids now and protect our seniors, the poor, and vulnerable from future attacks. Tell them that it’s the very least they can do.
I’m going to keep tweeting and posting about this, and speaking out every chance I get, until it is fixed.
Later, she emailed the message.
Friend —
These days, bipartisanship sounds like a dream of the past, but when we first passed the Children’s Health Insurance Plan in 1997, we did so with support on both sides of the aisle — and gave millions of children, pregnant women, and families the security of knowing they had access to critical care.
We came together because we understood that the true measure of a community is how we treat our children. Whether we invest in them and give them an opportunity to live up to their God-given potential.
But then, more than 60 days ago, the Republican-controlled Congress let CHIP, which has been reauthorized on a bipartisan basis every year for the last 19 years, expire — leaving nine million children and families worried about their access to health care. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans rushed to pass so-called tax reform — a giveaway for those who least need it.
That’s unacceptable. And it gets worse. During the campaign, I warned that the Republicans would come after social security, Medicare, and Medicaid — and now they are. Imagine buying a Rolex and paying for it with money you saved to take care of your kids. That’s what Congress is doing with your tax dollars.
Today, I’m asking you to call your Representative and Senators at (202) 224-3121 and ask them to renew the Children’s Health Insurance immediately.
I’m thinking of people like Ryan Moore, who was seven when I first met him, wearing a full body brace and smiling from ear to ear. He inspired me and kept me going through the hardest moments of the fight for health reform. And like Sara Soltani, whose cochlear implant was covered under the Children’s Health Insurance Program — a fact she didn’t realize until her mother told her as she was preparing to graduate from high school and head off to college, her life full of promise and possibility.
There are countless children who got the chance to grow up, to dream big, to have the lives and the futures they deserved. Rosemary, we’ve come too far to turn back now.
Call your Representative and Senators and let them know that you’re counting on them to extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program: (202) 224-3121
There’s a lot to be frustrated by right now, to say the least. Here’s something that we should be able to fix together.
Yours,
Hillary
P.S. The current enrollment period for coverage under the Affordable Care Act ends December 15th — if you or someone you love needs coverage, tell them to go to healthcare.gov and sign up now.
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