With so much conversation about the “haves” and the “have nots” in our society today, it’s easy to cast children’s access to health care as “other people’s” problems. Here’s why these threats matter to so many of us.

If your child was injured in a car accident, started experiencing seizures or was showing symptoms of diabetes, you would want them to see the best specialist, right? The Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) program is a vitally important federal program that supports the training of more than 40 percent of the nation’s pediatricians and pediatric specialists — more than 5,600 each year. Legislation is being considered by Congress that would continue this program for another five years. The legislation has made it through the House, but still needs to pass the Senate. This program is key to ensuring that the highly trained expert that your child may need tomorrow is being trained today, so it is vital that the Senate takes action this year to preserve the program.

Call your senators today and urge them to pass CHGME reauthorization this year!  Without this program, the supply of trained pediatricians and pediatric specialists will be threatened. It’s a national investment in the health of every child in America.

When we talk about Medicaid and its increasing costs to states and the nation, we often fail to recognize just how many children rely on this state-federal program: one in three children depends on Medicaid for health coverage and one in two child patients in children’s hospitals depend on Medicaid for covering the cost of treatment. Now budget battles are threatening this safety net that children should be able to count on when they need it. As Congress searches for ways to cut the deficit, Medicaid is a potential target for billions in cuts. If the program is slashed, children will have fewer care options.

As parents and caregivers, we are responsible for providing the basic necessities our children need. To ensure our children have the ability to see a pediatric specialist — today and in the future — we need to make our voices heard. Congress will not act unless voters urge them to protect these crucial programs.
At the National Association of Children’s Hospitals (N.A.C.H.), we’ve launched a campaign called “Speak Now for Kids” to preserve children’s access to health care. Our video poignantly illustrates just how vulnerable children are. There are three simple things that everyone who loves a child can do to make a difference:

• Learn about the issues Congress is considering and how they could impact children. Visit www.speaknowforkids.org for more information.
• Act by writing your elected officials. Print a coloring page for your child to decorate and send to N.A.C.H. for delivery to your elected officials.
• Connect through social media to share your concerns and stay up to date on the latest news.

Please share the video through Facebook and Twitter with your friends and relatives. By joining together, speaking out and educating others, we can protect the valuable programs that care for the health care system’s youngest patients.
To get involved in the Speak Now for Kids campaign, visit www.speaknowforkids.org, follow our blog With All Our Might, join us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter at @speaknowforkids.

The conversation in Washington around cutting Medicaid and training for pediatricians is not much different than selling off a vital vehicle. Slashing support for pediatric care won’t solve our nation’s debt crisis, but will rather lay the groundwork for bigger costs – both financial and human.

This week, 30 families are visiting their members of Congress to share their personal stories of illness and hope and to communicate why jeopardizing Medicaid and training for tomorrow’s pediatricians is bad for every family in the country.

The children traveling to Washington, like Brandon Woods of Pickerington, Ohio, demonstrate the critical impact of care provided to children through Medicaid. Brandon was only five months old when he was diagnosed with a heart defect. The care he received at Nationwide Children’s Hospital allowed Brandon to manage his health for five years. When his condition worsened in 2009, he received a heart transplant. With his new heart, Brandon can now keep up with his friends.

Statistics tell another part of the story. There’s no doubt about the value in protecting all of the most vulnerable in our society – the elderly, the disabled and children. But within that spectrum, if you look at the numbers, you can see that care for children through Medicaid is actually a bargain. Children under age 19 represent more than half of all Medicaid enrollees, but they account for just 25 percent of the costs. In Fiscal Year 2008, Medicaid spending amounted to $2,587 per child, compared to $6,988 per adult and $14,295 per elderly adult.

What will children lose if Medicaid cuts become a reality? We know children already face troubles accessing the right care at the right time, and children will likely face longer waits and fewer choices if cuts are enacted. These delays in access can create more complex medical situations that will be costlier to address.

Innovation will also be jeopardized. Hospitals will face stark choices and the first programs to go will be the prevention-focused community initiatives that improve services, reduce health care costs and keep children out of the hospital. These are the very programs – designed to get better value for precious health care dollars – we should be supporting in this challenging budget environment.

Protecting Medicaid is an investment in our children’s future and so is training for tomorrow’s pediatricians and pediatric specialists. Yet, the sole federal program dedicated to training those pediatricians – the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education program, or CHGME – landed on the cutting room floor in President Obama’s proposed budget. By eliminating those residency positions, the nation’s brightest young doctors are encouraged to bypass pediatrics to pursue other specialties.

Cuts to CHGME represent approximately 450 pediatric resident slots nationwide. That number may feel abstract, but the family whose child begins having seizures and is faced with a three-month wait or travel to another state to see a pediatric neurologist will feel that cut in a very real and immediate way.

We are proud of the families who have cleared time in their summer plans to come to Washington and make their voices heard in the cacophony of political rhetoric. You can help by taking a few minutes to write a letter to your member of Congress. To contact your member of Congress, visit www.childrenshospitals.net.

We hope that members of Congress will get the message loud and clear. Failing to protect pediatric care leaves families without a vital avenue to good health for their children and inflicts a tremendous cost on us all.
For more information on Family Advocacy Day, visit www.childrenshospitals.net or follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/National-Association-of-Childrens-Hospitals/69789157983 or Twitter, @speaknowforkids, #FAD11.

Normally, when people ask me this question I have fabulous answers like spending a lot of time poolside, enjoying lazy summer weekends with my kids, catching fireflies and enjoying the TV coverage of Wimbledon. Although this summer, I have tried to carve out some time to spend with my two boys, I have been a bit preoccupied with the action in Congress to reform our health care system. Action in Congress has been fast and furious and it has taken Herculean efforts to keep up.

Over the past several weeks, I have spent significant time reading large draft health care bills, attending multiple Congressional hearings, meeting with Congressional staff and participating in a radio media tour highlighting children’s health care stories. All this to make sure that Congress properly focuses on children in their efforts to reform health care. My seven year old is still in disbelief that I actually read the 852 page House health reform bill in its entirety. My three year old volunteered to help so I handed him a huge stack of legislation. After some snack stains and a few lost pages he handed it back.

But, I am not the only one forgoing fun summer activities for a good cause. A little boy I met a couple weeks ago gave up part of his summer to come to DC and share his story with Congress. His story illustrates what a focus on children means not in the abstract, but in real life. Lionel is an 11-year old boy from New York City. As if Lionel’s travelling all the way to DC to tell his story is not amazing enough, he just had a kidney transplant in November. His story is not only heartwarming – his brother gave him a kidney — but also shows how important comprehensive and affordable health insurance coverage and real access to services can be to any family. Lionel was born with renal disease and had to go on dialysis. On dialysis, he was not able to do many of the things other kids could do easily, like play sports.

Lionel is now able to play sports and have a wonderful quality of life with his family (and beat me at the animal guessing game 10 times!). Due to the health care services Lionel was able to access; he will need less health care in the long-term and will be able to fully participate in life. Lionel’s mom says that without the children’s hospital where he was treated and Medicaid, which allowed Lionel to have access to lifesaving treatment, he would not be here today.

If I could wave my magic wand and get Congress to listen to little ol’ me this is what I would request:

* Ensure that every child has health insurance coverage. We can do this by automatically enrolling every child at birth, through age 21, in an insurance program since children cannot enroll themselves and provide default coverage to prevent gaps in care due to loss of employer-sponsored coverage or moves to another state.

* Ensure that coverage equals access. An insurance card does not guarantee that you will be able to access appropriate pediatric providers to get the services your children need when they need them. We need to address severe shortages in the pediatric workforce, specifically doctors who provide specialty services for children.

* Ensure that low-income children retain the comprehensive coverage and cost sharing protections they have under Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program today. With all of the new opportunities in health reform, we cannot forget about the most vulnerable children in our country.

I can report that there have been promising signs on all of these fronts. Two draft bills released so far – one from the House and one from the Senate – do address many of the areas that are important for children. In a recent House committee hearing on health reform, a handful of representatives mentioned the importance of considering children’s unique health care needs. These are promising signs, but we need to keep up our efforts to share our stories on what children need in health reform. Learning Lionel’s story and spending a couple days with him demonstrated in a real way why I do what I do every day and why we all need to pay attention and participate in the health care reform debate. Share your story at www.speaknowforkids.org

I am director of Medicaid and state policy analysis for the National Association of Children’s Hospitals (N.A.C.H.) and have worked on children’s health policy issues most of my career. I am also a mom to two energetic young boys — Owen, 7 and Carter, 3. I know not only from my professional work, but also because I am a mom, how important health care is for children.  Children who do not have access to health care are more likely to miss school which can negatively affect educational achievement. Many adult chronic conditions originate in childhood. A child’s ability to access preventive and needed health care services when they are young can impact their long term health and their quality of life well into adulthood. Without access to health care coverage, children often delay needed medical care and miss well-child visits.

Many of my friends and family not familiar with the intricacies of health policy ask me why including children in the health care debate means so much to me since I have private health insurance coverage for my kids. It is important to me because I believe that Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program are an important safety net for many families and would be there for my family if we needed them. It is important to me to support the physician workforce for children so that all children can have access to the specialty care they need when they need it. It is also important to me to improve the quality information available so that when children need health care their parents have the information required to make educated decisions. Children have a lot to gain in health reform, but they also have the most to lose if health reform does not address their needs.

That is why I believe making sure that children have a voice in health reform is the right action to take. Why is it important to you that children’s needs be included? Your family’s story might be about how hard it is to get the right health care coverage, or to find the right specialists and get a timely appointment, or to pay for health insurance premiums, co-pays and uncovered services. Or maybe you’ve had a sick child and were able to access the care you needed thanks to the health coverage you do have and want to make sure that other parents and families have the same experience. Please share your family’s health care story at www.SpeakNowforKids.org. The Speak Now for Kids campaign is non-partisan and is uniquely focused on making sure our elected officials don’t forget about kids as they are reforming our health care system.