From the Pennsylvania Health Access Network (http://www.pahealthaccess.org):
The Government shutdown is nearing an end, and as part of that deal, CHIP has been extended for 6 years.
This is fantastic news for the 180,000+ children and their families in Pennsylvania that rely on CHIP for health coverage, but this deal has come at the expense of equally important priorities, like a solution for the Dreamers, funding for Community Health Centers, and disaster relief for Americans in Puerto Rico & the Virgin Islands.
As a healthcare organization, we spend our time advocating for greater access to healthcare for ALL Pennsylvanians, and we normally keep our statements confined to healthcare issues. However, the decision by lawmakers in Washington to pit CHIP against DACA last week have made that impossible. We feel it’s important to state that we believe that ALL children who call the US home should have the right to grow up healthy and happy, and we will continue to stand with Dreamers until Congress finds a way to protect them. This fight won’t be over until we see a solution on DACA.
Beyond this, we have seen no movement on funding for critical programs like Community Health Centers that are in danger of shutting down, and the attacks on Medicaid <https://default.salsalabs.org/Tcbe32801-14e1-41d2-8a81-9b9599adea67/d7f036d2-9de2-49c6-811d-0df0d351b740> aren’t likely to stop anytime soon.
So while we celebrate the fact that thousands of PA families can breathe easier today knowing that CHIP will be there for them for the next six years, we aren’t planning to stop fighting for access to healthcare anytime soon, and we hope you won’t either.
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