Vetoed SCHIP Bill and China-Made Recalls

How Could the SCHIP Bill Help Children Impacted by Recent Recalls?

Every day in America, there are children in need of medical treatment that will not get it. Recently, a bill was introduced that would have allowed $35 million more in funding towards providing some of these children with the health care coverage they greatly need, in the form of funds that would have gone to SCHIP.

SCHIP is a medical program that covers children at an extremely low cost per family and is provided to children whose households make too much money to qualify for medicaid, but not enough to pay a monthly medical coverage premium.

Unfortunately, for those children, our president, for whatever reason, did not feel that funding was needed at this time. He vetoed that $35 million bill, leaving many people upset, including the United States Conference of Mayors.

Recently, there have also been many recalls of products geared toward children, such as Graco and Simplicity cribs, Fisher-Price and Mattel toys, blocks, infant car seats, and many other children's toys and products. Many of these products were recalled due to lead contamination in paint or dye used to color the toys. Most of the contaminated products were made in China, but a few were made in the United States.

Some of these products were recalled due to safety hazards, besides the lead contamination, and some even caused infant deaths.

So, what do these product recalls have to do with the SCHIP bill?

It's simple. The children affected by these products need testing and medical care. It is very likely that not all of them have health care, since health care coverage for children has been an issue in this country for quite some time.

That $35 million would likely help some of the children affected by these recalls, some of which will likely not receive proper treatment otherwise. There could be children out there who are suffering from lead contamination, but their families are unaware because they cannot afford doctor visits and health care coverage.

Lead testing is a routine screening that can be done on these children, if only they had medical coverage and a pediatrician, but, sadly, some of them will never get that medical care.