1.3 Million Uninsured Children Live in Rural Areas

Remember the k.i.s.s. -- keep it simple! -- method? Today ... let's just keep it simple.

Question: What's the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) about?

Answer: Kids who don't have health insurance because their families can't afford the insurance.

Question: Why did President Bush veto the bill?

Answer: Apparently misinformed?

Question: What can you do?

Answer: Ask your Member of Congress to override the President's veto.

Question: How?

Answer: Call or email -- see below.

• US House of Representatives

Or you can just call the US Capitol and ask by name: 202-224-3121

PS: Want more facts? Click here for the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute study on how SCHIP affects rural children ... or just read a little bit more. All facts come from the Institute.

• 1.3 million uninsured children live in rural areas.
• In 2005 - the latest year the figures are available, about four million rural children depended upon public health insurance.]
• What SCHIP does is build upon the Medicaid program. Thus, for children from the poorest of families, Medicaid covers the children
• But for the working poor, i.e., those who make a little too much money to be below the poverty level, but not nearly enough dollars to buy private ... and expensive ... health insurance, SCHIP makes up the difference.
• Most children who are eligible now ... or will be eligible with reauthorization, come from families who earn less than twice as much as the poverty level
• Poverty level for a family of four is $20,650 annual income.
• The cost of health insurance has risen dramatically in recent years
  

You can also read more detail about Congress' effort to override Bush's veto at National Public Radio's website.

Children's Health Care ... Is the President's Veto a sign of battles to come?

We all know about warning signals. There are the easy ones, like a red light that tells us to stop or a yellow light saying caution. We also know about other kinds of warning signals, e.g., when the fish show up dead on the shore, we know we have an environmental disaster on our hands .... and that we'd better clean it up, or we'll be sick from the water, too.

Now, Ron Brownstein, writing for National Journal, has identified a new warning signal, saying, "The current debate (on children's health care) is a prelude to next year's fight over broader health care reform."

President Bush said he vetoed the bill because the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) would direct its benefits toward middle class families who don't need the help. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office refutes, finding that 85 percent of the nearly 4 million uninsured children the bill would add to the rolls live in families already eligible for the program.

In fact, the Urban Institute found that three-fourths of the children who would be newly enrolled, live in families who earn less than twice the federal poverty level, or about $41,000 for a family of four.

For rural children, the situation becomes particularly dire. The Carsey Institute's studies on rural children's health care finds there is growing need, with rural children's dependence on SCHIP for health care six percent higher than for urban children.

All of us from rural areas of the country have stories to tell ... about how diminished our small -- now smaller, home towns, have become as the good jobs left town and many of the remaining families have more trouble making ends meet. Now, some of us are counting on the emerging bio-fuel renewable energy industry to bring back some of those new jobs. But meanwhile, our children don't have time to wait.

What the President really meant with his veto, is that he wants to send a message to middle class voters that assistance on health insurance will cost more than it's worth. It's the same message that the old "Harry and Louise" political ad used to kill Bill and Hillary Clinton's proposal for universal health insurance coverage. That old "Harry & Louise ad, by the way, is now used in Wikipedia as a primary example of modern propaganda, i.e., how ads can twist facts and confuse their audience.

However Brownstein also reminds us, "Since then, the cycle of rising health care costs and declining access has threatened more middle-class families: Of the 1 million children who lost health insurance over the past two years, fully two in five lived in families earning more than twice the poverty level."

Congress is considering now whether to over-ride Mr. Bush's veto. We urge you to call or email your member of Congress. Ask them to support SCHIP. Click below to find out how to email your Representative and Senators.

United State House of Representatives

United States Senate

We're also doing our first poll on this blogging site, so take a look at it, too ... and let us know what you're thinking.

Actions -- More Effective than Words

We have a newly updated website underway. When we release it, you may expect this blog to be integrated into the web.

You may also expect us to track key votes in Congress. We will also be starting a "presidential candidate watch" in which our new site will offer easy access to progressive presidential candidates' positions on key rural issues.

Wyoming and Oklahoma -- The Real Story on Their Need for Disaster Assistance

In 2006, Wyoming had the worst case of drought in our country. Oklahoma was close behind, as was west Texas. President Bush and the Republican Majority in Congress didn't want to help so for two years in a row, they locked the disaster relief bill up in committee so there couldn't be a vote on the bill. Still, various Republican members from these states still talked a good game.

Georgia Congressman John Barrow (D-GA) got tired of this double-talk, so he started a discharge petition, i.e., a legal document which requires Members of Congress to sign if they want to vote on a specific issue.

My Rural America told the story in Wyoming:

In 2006, My Rural America and our Rural Leadership Coordinator Aaron Owens worked hard to bring the facts about the need for disaster assistance for drought victims to Wyoming citizens' attention.

By failing to sign a discharge petition that would require a vote on agriculture disaster assistance in the House of Representatives, Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., is “hanging Wyoming farmers out to dry,” according to My Rural America, a non-partisan educational organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in rural communities.

“Wyoming’s only representative has stood on the sidelines while her Republican friends have blocked drought relief, despite having told us she would ‘use some political capital’ to help farmers in her own state," said Aaron R. Owens, Rural Leadership Coordinator for My Rural America.

Owens, who lives in Laramie, said that only two Republicans – neither of them Rep. Cubin – have signed the petition that needs 218 signatures to force Congress to move agriculture disaster assistance legislation forward. “It is a classic case of Cubin telling her constituents and the press one thing in Wyoming but acting in another way when she is in Washington,” said Owens.-

Owens noted that 197 Members of Congress have united behind the effort to force a vote last month before the House of Representatives recessed until after the November elections. Despite the urging of more than 30 farm and allied organizations that encouraged all members of Congress to sign the discharge petition, the House Republican leadership prevailed when most GOP members with agricultural constituencies, including Cubin, declined to do so.

Representative Barbara Cubin (R-WY At Large) refused to sign the petition, but she still went from town to town to insist she was committed to getting assistance for drought victims. Essentially, she double-talked, but sadly, Wyoming newspapers refused to carry the story. This year, once again, Cubin voted no on disaster assistance.

Like Cubin, Frank Lucas (R-OK) also said he was for disaster assistance in 2006. He even sponsored his own bill, but when push came to shove, he failed to sign the discharge petition to get the final bill out of committee. Once again, local newspapers only carried stories that said what Lucas said, rather than what he did.

Cubin and Lucas were re-elected in November 2006 but voters -- starved for information, had no option but to believe what they said. At My Rural America, we believe actions are more important than words.

Torrington, Wyoming -- "Rural America: Invisible to Voters"

Joe Miklosi, candidate for Colorado State House -- District 9, brought this Denver Post story to our attention: "Rural America: Invisible to Voters"

In it, Denver Post writer Karen E. Crummy wonders why rural voters are often ignored.

The story serves as a prime example of why we've begun My Rural America, i.e., when rural citizens don't get the news and are locked out of easy access to high-speed Internet ... while their small town newspapers no longer have the resources to serve as community watch-dogs to tell the story about how national elected officials serve their communities, all too many rural citizens become quiet ... and too trusting.

Our favorite quote in the story:

• "Ignoring these [rural] areas can be politically lethal for candidates. While rural voters make up only about 23 percent of the electorate, they have affected the past four presidential elections."

The story continues, "Former President Clinton, a Democrat, appealed to enough rural residents to receive almost 50 percent of their votes in 1992 and 1996. President Bush won in 2000 and 2004 by netting 60 percent or more of the rural vote.

"It shows that to win as a Republican, you need the lion's share of rural votes. For Democrats to win, you have to neutralize those voters," said Seth McKee, a University of South Florida professor who analyzed rural voters in presidential elections from 1992 to 2004.

"Exit polling shows that religion, gender and what region of the country they live in take a back seat to the residents' rural status in voting, Mc Kee said."

... Well, yes! Residents' rural status matters, but rural residents have to be able to get the facts, too. Without news, without easy access to the facts -- voting records and accurate policy information, rural voters can easily waste their votes.

My Rural America sets the record straight. For an example about how we set the record straight, see our next story.