The 45-minute event will be broadcast via satellite from Washington, D.C. beginning at 12:00 p.m. Susan Dentzer, lead health correspondent for PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, will serve as moderator. The national webcast at noon will be followed by a local discussion featuring area child care advocates, civic leaders and health care providers. That discussion will be moderated by Susan Davis.

Members of the public, local child care advocates, health care providers, and civic leaders and others interested in child welfare are invited to attend. 

The nationwide webcast is designed to highlight the importance of providing all children with adequate healthcare coverage.   

The broadcast will include a discussion about the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Medicaid, and the plight of uninsured children by national healthcare leaders and policy experts. 

“St. Vincent’s is sponsoring this event to raise awareness of the upcoming reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), draw attention to the millions of children who remain uninsured and highlight the need to ensure that Medicaid remains strong. We have invited a diverse group to participate, as well as media and congressional representatives,” Davis said.

Davis said she believes the National Town Hall Meeting on Children’s Health Coverage will be an effective public education tool about the impact that SCHIP and Medicaid have had in reducing the number of uninsured children. It will also highlight the struggle that many families still have to provide regular access to health coverage for their children.

“The Town Hall Meeting will send an important message supporting SCHIP reauthorization and the need to make health coverage accessible to all children,” she said.

St. Vincent’s recently participated in a related initiative to collect one million signatures on a petition asking the President and Congress for legislation providing affordable quality health coverage for all children.

More than 9 million children (most of them live in two-parent families where both are working) lack health insurance in the United States, the wealthiest nation in the world; and millions more are underinsured.

According to research published by the campaign, uninsured children are more than 13 times as likely to lack a usual source of health care, and they are more than three times as likely not to have seen a doctor in the past year as insured children. More than half (54 percent) of uninsured children did not have a well-child visit in the past year, more than double the rate (26 percent) for insured children.

Member of the Children’s Health Campaign said they believe investing in children's health returns innumerable benefits, including improved development and health outcomes for children, improved school performance, and long-term savings in health care costs.

The National Town Hall Meeting on Children’s Health Coverage is sponsored nationally by the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, Families USA, the Federation of American Hospitals, the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions and the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems.

The town hall meeting is one component of the "Campaign for Children's Health Care", a 50 member organization including some of the nation’s largest hospital and healthcare groups.  Both St. Vincent’s and its parent organization, Ascension Health, belong to the Catholic Health Association (CHA), which is a member of "Campaign for Children's Health Care."

St. Vincent’s has a history in taking a leadership role in providing care to uninsured and underinsured children and adults through its Family Health Center and Outreach Services.

For more information on the Campaign for Children’s Health Care, visit:  http://www.childrenshealthcampaign.org
or call the St. Vincent’s toll free Care Line at 1-877-255-7847.