CCF Turns 4 Today!

The Center for Children and Families came into being four years ago today to develop effective, practical strategies to improve access to quality health care for children and families.  As we spend our birthday watching the Senate Roundtable Discussion,”Increasing Access to Health Care Coverage,” we wanted to celebrate with you online (fewer calories that way).

Before we blow out the candles, I want to thank my two Deputy Directors, Jocelyn Guyer and Joan Alker, who were on board from day 1, and the CCF staff who all have played key roles along the way.  Just as notable are those of you with whom we work–CCF wouldn’t be the strong and effective voice for children’s health care coverage without all of our great friends and partners across the country who continued their unwavering commitment to children during challenging times.  In the past four years, we have witnessed rising health care costs, declining coverage through the workplace, policies that were aimed at limiting rather than supporting coverage, and, more recently, a wrenching economic downturn. Despite all of this, children’s coverage has advanced.
As we look forward to the next four years, we at CCF are optimistic. Thanks to a supportive public, bipartisan political leadership, and the dogged determination of state and national groups, a strong CHIP reauthorization bill was passed as one of the top priorities of the Obama Administration.  As Jocelyn has observed in this blog, the advances from CHIPRA are not automatic–they must be adopted at the state level.  All of you working on the state and local fronts have helped us find reason to cheer despite the bad state budget news.  So far this year, we have seen coverage advances for children adopted in many states reaching from Alaska to New Jersey and from Arkansas to Oregon.
Now we are all focused on health reform and getting the final pieces of the puzzle in place for children and making further major advances for all uninsured people. The challenge is great–children have much to gain from health reform but also much to lose.  Today’s Senate Roundtable Discussion taking place before the Senate Finance Committee may give us a sense of where the Senate is heading on health reform.  We expect activity on health reform to ramp up quite dramatically and it is essential that we all not only stay tuned but stay engaged!
Thank you for making the last four years an exciting and productive journey. We’re looking forward to the next sprint together–perhaps this is the one that will get us to that finish line.

Latest