Children's Defense Fund leader brings campaign to LBJ School
 

Against the backdrop of a Martin Luther King image, children's advocate Marian Wright Edelman urged students to help launch a health insurance information campaign in Texas.

photo by María de la Luz Martínez

Universal health insurance for children is the first step in ending poverty in America, said the country's leading children's advocate during a talk at the LBJ School in February.

"It all begins there," said Marian Wright Edelman, founder and head of the Children's Defense Fund. "We have to make sure all our children get the healthy start in life they deserve, and that means making sure they have the health insurance they're entitled to."

Edelman noted that of the 11.5 million children currently uninsured in this country, 7 million are eligible for health insurance under either the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or Medicaid. She said the Children's Defense Fund is mounting a massive campaign to let people know they are eligible for health insurance under these programs. She described a prototype program in New York called SHOUT, which brings college students, medical students, and other young volunteers into the community to inform people about the CHIP program, help them fill out the complicated enrollment forms, and then help them reach health care providers.

She urged students to join a similar effort being launched in Texas, noting that the state is number 50 in the nation in the number of children without health insurance.

Edelman was in Austin to promote her new book, Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors. She was invited to speak at the LBJ School by Dean Ed Dorn, who serves on the Texas advisory board of the Children's Defense Fund.

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