Georgia Gov. Testifies on Child Healthcare

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue on Tuesday delivered testimony concerning the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to the Subcommittee on Health of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. In his testimony, Gov. Perdue again called on Congress to uphold its duty to appropriately fund the program and revise SCHIP’s funding formula to provide for a sustainable and stable future for this important program. As of January 2008, Georgia’s SCHIP program, PeachCare for Kids, provided health coverage to 234,720 children. Gov. Perdue also asked Congress to keep the focus of the program on children. “The key principle of SCHIP is that children should always be top priority. Our resources must focus first on children,” said Gov. Perdue. “This is not the case in every state right now. Some states have expanded their programs to include health insurance for other groups, even childless adults. But the goal of this program all along was to provide an answer to an insurance need for our most vulnerable population: low income children."