Children need people to advocate for them

"How can we call ourselves a people of faith and not take care of our babies?" This is the question, Sharon Watkins, the Disciples General Minister and President, asked herself as she left a seminar for denominational leaders in Washington, D.C. At the seminar, she listened to parents and grandparents tell their stories of not being able to obtain medical attention for their sick children.

Perhaps you, too, have heard some of the tragic stories about families who have inadequate or no health care coverage for their children. Perhaps the story is your own.

Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) currently provide coverage to over thirty million children. These two programs have greatly improved the availability of health insurance to children. Yet more than nine million children, most of whom live in working households, still have no health care coverage. Even though this problem requires political action to be solved, it is not a political issue. It is about children and it is a moral issue that we, good people of faith, cannot avoid.

Children need people to advocate for them. They do not choose their parents. They do not choose how or where to live. They are totally vulnerable and we must do all we can to protect them. Voicing concern to our representatives in Washington and to our president is one concrete thing we can do. Now is the time to take action because the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is up for renewal this year. Children's advocates agree that if we cannot get the Federal Government to do something this year it will not come up again for another seven years. Seven years is too late for today's children. 

Disciples Home Missions has created a Web page, "Health Care for All Children, NOW." Here you will find a letter from Watkins to Disciples congregations, liturgical resources, and examples of letters to the editor and to legislators that support the adoption of a bill that advocates for the coverage of all children. If you do not agree with the position of these example letters, please compose and send your own. The important thing is to let your concern for children be known. Also posted is a draft of the health care resolution that will come before the Disciples General Assembly in Fort Worth, Texas, in July.

You can download a copy of House of Representatives Bill 1688 at (http://thomas.loc.gov/). This bill is sponsored by Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia and calls for the creation of a new "All Healthy Children Program." Matthew Rosen, a Disciple and the Religious Action Coordinator at Children's Defense Fund, has created a resource called, "Covering All Children in 2007, an Achievable, Smart, and Right Goal." This is a toolkit to help faith communities join together to learn about, pray for and act on behalf of all children.

You can download a copy of this resource from the Childrens' Defense Fund Web site.