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Home > Press Room > 2007 > Press Release
Press Release
LULAC President Calls For
Support On New SCHIP Bill.
Children Health Bill Would Guarantee Insurance
For Ten Million Children.
October 25, 2007
For more information, contact:
Javier Dominguez, 202-833-6130 ext 12
Washington, DC – The League of
United Latin American Citizens, our nation’s
oldest and largest Hispanic civil rights
organization, endorses H.R. 3963, the State
Children’s Health Insurance Program. Although
the bill is not perfect by any means, the bill
will expand the program by $35 billion for a
total of $60 billion in the next five years and
grant insurance for ten million low income
children.
“While we remain deeply
disappointed that the legal Immigrant Children’s
Health Improvement Act (ICHIA) provision was not
included, a provision that would have granted
states flexibility to provide health insurance
for low income and lawfully residing immigrant
children, the reauthorization of SCHIP will
substantially reduce healthcare disparities for
minority communities,” said LULAC National
President Rosa Rosales. “There are over three
million Latino children living in the United
States without any insurance whatsoever, and 70%
of them are eligible but not even enrolled in
the program. The SCHIP reauthorization aims to
get at the root cause of this crisis by
improving the quality of low income children,
improving outreach tools to simplify enrollment
of eligible children, as well as help remedy the
shortfalls that have persisted in the program.”
The Congressional Budget
Office has reported that by 2012, the new SCHIP
bipartisan bill would extend health coverage to
a total of 3.8 million children, 2.4 million
(63%) would be minority children, including 1.4
million Latino children.
Nevertheless, there are some
concerns that should be addressed. Not only does
this bill exclude ICHIA but it also includes a
harsh citizenship eligibility verification
system. As is, if the Social Security
Administration cannot confirm an SCHIP
applicant’s legal status, then the applicant
will be required to provide the state with
additional documentation. In addition, over one
year, qualifying adults without children will be
phased out under the new restrictions as opposed
to two.
The League of United Latin
American Citizens, the largest and oldest
Hispanic membership organization in the country,
advances the economic conditions, educational
attainment, political influence, health and
civil rights of Hispanic Americans through
community-based programs operating at more than
700 LULAC councils nationwide.
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