The Florida Department of Health joined other state and local agencies, community organizations and providers of children’s services in promoting Children’s Week, a special annual celebration that brings thousands of children to the state capitol for an opportunity to meet legislators and participate in numerous child-centered activities.
The 20th annual event kicked off on April 12 with the “Hanging of the Hands,” a cherished tradition of hanging tens of thousands of paper cut-outs of children’s hands decorated by children from schools across the state, in the Capitol Rotunda.
Despite the week-long celebration of Florida’s children, the future of KidCare, Florida’s version of the federally funded Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which matches state dollars to provide health coverage to kids in low-income families, remains up in the air as federal funding for the program is due to expire in September.
About 2 million children in Florida are covered by the KidCare program and reportedly, about 400,000 uninsured children will likely be affected if the program does not receive further federal funding. Moreover, if Congress does not act, estimates suggest that Florida would lose about $500 million in federal funds annually.
To make matters worse, children in immigrant families up to twice the poverty level, currently must still wait five years before they could receive health coverage and it’s far from certain that a health care bill to remove this wait period will pass the Florida Legislature. If the bill passes, about 25,000 children would be added to KidCare, for which federal funding remains uncertain.
Meanwhile, childcare advocates are cautiously optimistic that federal funding will be extended under KidCare and legislators will do the right thing in relation to Florida’s poor children from immigrant families.
For information about Children’s Week observances throughout the state, visit http://childrensweek.org/
