By Crystal Swann
November 9, 2009

Children, parents, grandparents, activists, and members of Congress gathered November 4 on the west lawn of the Capitol to raise awareness on the impact of healthcare reform on children. The rally, or more specifically the Stroller Brigade, was organized by the Children’s Defense Fund, a leading national nonprofit advocate for children, and included participation by Pennsylvania Senator Robert Casey, Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott.

Under the leadership of Marian Wright Edelman and with it’s slogan “Champions for Children’s Health: All Children, All Care, Everywhere;” the rally’s goal was to raise concerns that the current bills being debated in Congress don’t adequately protect and care for the nation’s children. “Congress is debating health reform legislation that could leave millions of children worse rather than better off and fails to fix bureaucratic, unfair barriers to care,” stated the Children’s Defense Fund website announcement.

A key issue of concern is how the health exchanges currently being proposed will address the well being of children. In February 2009, President Obama signed into law the current Children’s Health Insurance Program, a broad sweeping and close to comprehensive plan to cover children caught in the gap between Medicaid and the high cost of private insurance. As the legislations currently being debated state, those children, as of the expiration of CHIP in 2014, would either move into an expanded Medicaid system or into the health care exchange. There is strong concern that this will leave millions of children uninsured with their parents unable to navigate the new bureaucracy.