Children’s Defense Fund-California would like to thank Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) for stepping forward and co-sponsoring the Casey Children’s CHIP Amendment to strengthen the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP known as Healthy Families in California) and preserve CHIP coverage for children until 2019. This amendment helped push the Senate to extend CHIP funding through 2015 and protect the program through 2019. This improved upon the House’s health reform bill which repeals CHIP in 2013. Though the Casey Children’s CHIP Amendment was not included in the final Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it did help to preserve CHIP and provide health coverage for 31 million currently uninsured children and adults.

We thank Senator Boxer for her leadership for children to ensure they were protected and prioritized in Senate health reform legislation.

Learn more about how children are faring in the national health reform process.