ELCA NEWS SERVICE

July 3, 2007  

ELCA Presiding Bishop Calls for Increase in Children's Health Program
07-118-LL*

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), joined
leaders of 20 other national religious organizations in a
letter to leaders of the U.S. Congress June 7, urging expanded
funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program
(SCHIP).
     The religious leaders joined the People Improving
Communities through Organizing (PICO) National Network, and the
National Council of Churches USA (NCC) in their call for action.
They asked U.S. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Finance Committee
chair, and U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), majority leader, to
help produce $50 billion in legislation to expand SCHIP.
      PICO and NCC have generated more than 9,000 letters from
faith communities to the Senate on SCHIP, according to a PICO
news release.
     "We speak from a broad range of religious traditions
representing many millions of families in urging you to craft
SCHIP legislation that will help our nation see a day when no
child goes without treatment or relies on an emergency room for
his or her primary health care," the church leader wrote.
      "We ask that you fulfill the commitment Congress made to
include $50 billion over five years in additional funding for
children's health. The faith community worked extraordinarily
hard to see that the Senate and House included $50 billion in new
funding in the budget resolution.  We want to see these funds
used to support a strong SCHIP reauthorization."
     PICO is a national network of faith-based community
organizations working to create solutions for problems faced by
communities.  PICO works to increase access to health care,
improve public schools, make neighborhoods safer, provide
affordable housing, redevelop communities and revitalize
democracy.  More than 50 religious denominations and faith
traditions, including the ELCA, representing more than 1 million
families, are part of PICO, according to its mission statement.
     "With your continued leadership we see a day when all
children in our nation receive the health care they need to grow
into healthy and productive members of society," the leaders
concluded in their letter.
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     Information about PICO and the text of the religious
leaders' letter is at
http://piconetwork.org/ on the PICO Web site.

     More information about the ELCA's organizing ministries is
at http://www.ELCA.org/organizing on the ELCA Web site.
     
* Lauren A. Lamb is a senior public relations and speech
communication major at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
This summer she is an intern with the ELCA News Service.

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