Los Angeles – Yesterday, Congress left town without securing long-term funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or health centers and ignoring critical programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV). While Members of Congress gather around their families for the holidays, millions of Americans will be left worrying about the future of their families.
As advocates for children’s health and wellbeing, we call on our Congressional leaders to stop endangering the wellbeing of millions of children. In California, over 2 million children and pregnant women receive critical health care services through CHIP, and more than 1.4 million children receive services in California’s health centers. One in four DACA recipients calls California home and home visiting programs help our most vulnerable children grow up healthy.
Every child deserves the right to a bright future, and programs like CHIP, DACA, our health centers, and MIECHV help make this possible for millions of kids. We need immediate action by Congress to properly fund CHIP for the next five years, fully renew community health center and MIECHV funding, and have a clean, permanent fix for DACA. Our children are counting on us.
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