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Health Coverage for All Children Campaign
CDF's Health Coverage for All Children Campaign, a national, state, and local initiative to guarantee comprehensive health and mental health coverage for all children and pregnant women in America.
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Robert
Richard Uhr, a retired AT&T employee, worked for a full year to renew his grandson's CHIP coverage. Richard's son, Robert, is deaf, so as a result, Richard advocates for his grandson's health insurance, calling CHIP "the worst fight I’ve ever been involved in."
Over a year-long period, Richard received 18 letters requesting different– often conflicting– missing information on his grandson's case. Names and case numbers were incorrect, information was lost and the family was continually asked to submit information that they had already provided. Richard even went to Austin to testify about the problems he had experienced in renewing his grandson's coverage. He showed a panel of lawmakers the letters that he had been sent and closed his testimony with the approval letter that he had received only after the Children's Defense Fund intervened on his behalf. "I'm taking this as gospel that my grandson will now have health coverage," Richard Uhr said. Unbelievably, on the day that Richard testified in Austin, he received yet another letter. It told him that he needed to submit missing information or his grandson would lose his health coverage.
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