Published: October 17, 2007 11:57 am      

Supporters Speak Out

Citizens rally for children's health care program

CUMBERLAND - If Congress doesn't override President Bush's veto, and funding for SCHIP is reduced, 42,000 Maryland children will lose health insurance benefits.

That's what local residents who attended a rally designed to help override the veto said Tuesday night. "It looks hopeful in the Senate. Right now we're just working to get that to happen in Congress," Brian Grim, who manages daily public service operations at Rocky Gap State Park, said.

Rally supporters of the State Children's Health Insurance Program said if the override, slated for a Thursday vote, fails, "then the legislation is gone," Grim said.

Health care programs will be cut that "we can't afford to have ... cut," LaVale resident Shelly Lashbaugh said, adding "we will regret it in the long run."

The National Rural Health Association began mounting a campaign early in 2007 to educate congressional delegates about how much rural areas depend on SCHIP. "When we as a nation cannot care for our most vulnerable, that doesn't speak well for us and our social order," said Hilda Heady, 2005 president of NRHA. The "SCHIP program, especially for rural children in Western Maryland and West Virginia, is a wonderful stopgap measure," she added.

Bill Duvall, Allegany County Democratic Committee chair, urged U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett to support the override efforts. "Roscoe needs to support the children in Western Maryland," he said.

Fliers sent out about this and other rallies throughout the area speak specifically of Bartlett's recent vote against SCHIP, Cumberland rally supporters want Bartlett to change his mind. If he doesn't, then Duvall said "the election's coming up," implying that Bartlett's constituents will remember his stance on the issue.

In a public statement, Bartlett said he voted to create SCHIP in 1997, and plans "to continue to work to ensure a safety net of health insurance for the children of the working poor."

But Bartlett maintains "that half of the four million targeted ... are children in middle-class families who already have their own health insurance which they would drop for government-controlled, taxpayer-paid health insurance." He said this proves that advocates of an SCHIP expansion "really want to have the government control how to spend the money that American taxpayers earn."

Instead, Bartlett said he proposes "better outreach programs to identify children in these families without health insurance," as well as "a new refundable tax credit for families earning up to $62,000 so they can buy their own insurance."

Rally supporters, however, feel that if the federal government can spend money on the Iraq war effort, then money for children's health care is equally important.

Duvall said "these children need health care, which, as I understand, is somewhere the equivalent of 30 to 40 days worth of expenditures in Iraq," adding that that spending comes at "the expense of the children. That's obscene."

Frostburg State University student Daniel Hall agrees with Duvall. "This is important legislation (and) we're right at the cusp of overriding ... Bush's veto," Hall said. "It's absolutely critical. Our children, they need this. There's nothing more important than making sure they're covered."

Hall, who isn't a parent, said he's seen firsthand what it's like to live in an uninsured family, during unemployment, ad-ding "it's just far too important to live without health care. And this is really the first step in implementing a true universal health care policy that will benefit all ... Americans."

Funding SCHIP is "really the first step in making sure ... these children receive the care ... they need," Hall said. Plus, getting preventative care means "a healthier society in the long run."

Daleen Berry can be reached at dberry@times-news.com.