“…let’s talk about honoring our most important responsibility as Iowans. That is, our duty as parents, and as shepherds of our children’s future. You know, I’m proud of the fact, that working together, we’ve made a long-term investment in the health and education of “all” children… Together, we must continue this investment, and my budget will reflect this.”

I recently returned from maternity leave and had no idea what the state of children and family health coverage would be given the protracted battle on health reform and the challenges facing state budgets. I was pleasantly surprised to see that while there is still a lot of anxiety about current state budget woes and health care reform, that many lawmakers, like Governor Culver, are vigorously defending the improvements they’ve made for children’s coverage in recent years.

While the last four and a half months have been the most wonderful and the most challenging of my life, they weren’t riddled with stress and fear about how to pay for my baby’s delivery or any of his health care needs. Instead, I was able to focus on making sure my baby was fed, changed, treated for any medical needs and, most importantly, loved and cherished.

After going through this extraordinary experience, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a new parent and have the added stress of being unable to pay for necessary medical care or being face with an insurance company that views pregnancy as a pre-existing condition.

Next week marks the one-year anniversary of President Obama’s signing of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization and I can’t help but think of all those babies born in the last year who were given a better chance at living a healthy life due to this important legislation. I applaud Governor Culver and other state lawmakers who had the courage and leadership to use CHIP and Medicaid funding to increase their investments in families struggling to weather the current economic storm. It is my sincere hope that national health reform will happen and will help to shore up these important investments and propel the nation forward in meeting the health care needs of its people.