You might have heard last week that health care reform is "dead" or on "life support" after Scott Brown won a special Massachusetts election to the U.S. Senate. While Senate rules require 60 votes to pass reform, and the number of Senators supporting reform has fallen to 59, Congress can still adopt legislation to provide affordable and quality health care to virtually every child and their family. Kids Need Your Help Now!!

The House and the Senate have passed different versions of reform. Normally, a conference committee would work out their differences, and then vote again to pass a single version. However, as a result of the Massachusetts election, supporters of reform, while possessing a large majority, will not be able to stop endless debate according to Senate rules. Alternately, reform can still be passed by the House of Representatives simply by passing the Senate’s version of the bill and sending it directly to the President for his signature.

The Every Child Matters Education Fund strongly supports this approach because it will benefit millions of children. We urge you to contact your House members  and tell them to vote for the health care reform passed by the Senate.

Click here to get in touch with your member of Congress.

While not perfect, the Senate’s version of reform contains numerous benefits for children and their families: 

• Extending funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the adoption tax credit to 2015
• Allowing foster care children aging out of Medicaid to retain their comprehensive coverage
• Immediately banning denial of coverage for children based on pre-existing conditions
• Expanding Medicaid eligibility to children in families from 100% of poverty to 133% of poverty, covering millions of children in this comprehensive program
• Establishing a Pregnancy Assistance Fund for teenage mothers
• Allowing young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance until the age 26
• Adding billions of dollars for community health centers, which will improve access and delivery of care for millions of children across this country
• Providing health coverage to 31 Million more men, women, and children nationwide. (See below for state by state numbers).
• Requiring coverage for basic pediatric services under all health plans as well as oral and vision coverage
• Improving the care children receive by promoting quality measurement and reporting
• Ensuring that all children have access to free preventive services under their health insurance plans
• Offering health insurance through an Exchange to families without job-based coverage, and subsidize premiums for those who can’t afford it
• Ensuring through an Exchange that children have access to insurance, whether their parents change jobs, move, or get sick

Once a bill is passed, Congress will have many opportunities in the future to make it better. For example, when civil rights laws were passed five decades ago, there was a Civil Rights Act of 1960, a Civil Rights Act of 1964, and a Civil Rights Act of 1968. Each bill was incomplete, but each prompted stronger laws and protections. Each new bill created an environment where the debate centered on how to improve the law, not the same tired debate of whether or not to begin reform.

For all these reasons, we urge you to contact your member of the House and tell them to vote for the Senate’s health care reform bill. This issue is too important to let die again while millions of children and their families have no access to care.

**Additional people covered by health reform by state:

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