March of Dimes Drives Children’s Health Bill in Senate Senate Letter Urges Action, New CDC Center a Primary Focus On July 13th the "Children’s Public Health Act of 2000" (S. 2868) was introduced in the Senate by Senators Bill Frist (R-TN), James Jeffords (R-VT), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Mike DeWine (R-OH), Jack Reed (D-RI), Patty Murray (D-WA), Christopher Bond (R-MO), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Slade Gorton (R-WA), Spencer Abraham (R-MI), and Richard Durbin (D-IL). This bill is a companion to the "Children’s Health Act of 2000" (H.R. 4365), which passed the House by an overwhelming margin on May 9.
S. 2868 contains many of the same provisions in the House-passed version that strengthen the federal commitment to the health of the nation’s mothers, infants and children. In particular, the March of Dimes is strongly supporting four provisions critical to the mission: folic acid education; establishment of a National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities; promotion of safe motherhood monitoring and prevention research; and expansion of pediatric research at the National Institutes of Health.
During the recent Public Affairs Conference, March of Dimes staff and volunteers urged senators to sign a letter circulated by Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA) and Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) calling for prompt consideration and approval of a children’s health bill in the Senate. As a result, 31 senators signed onto the letter.
"March of Dimes Public Affairs Conference participants were instrumental in obtaining Senate support for the letter, which emphasized the bill’s significant contributions to pediatric research and its role in making maternal health a national priority," said March of Dimes President Dr. Jennifer L. Howse. Senators Gorton and Kohl cited the March of Dimes leadership in supporting the effort.
One of the bill’s central provisions is the creation of a Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The purpose of the Center is "to provide national leadership to combat birth defects, … [and]…, to collect, analyze, and distribute data on birth defects," said Senator Bill Frist, MD during introduction of the "Children’s Public Health Act of 2000."
The proposed Center would include all current activities, budgets and personnel in the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) that relate to birth defects, developmental disabilities, folic acid education, child development, newborn screening, pediatric genetics, and disability prevention.
The March of Dimes will continue to work towards enactment of this important legislation.
Crop Insurance Bill Expands Outreach for S-CHIP and Medicaid Uses School Lunch and WIC Programs to Identify Insurance Candidates
An act signed into law on June 29 by President Clinton will allow school lunch and Women, Infants and Children (WIC) programs to help enroll eligible low-income children without health insurance in S-CHIP and Medicaid.
"This bipartisan legislation holds significant promise in addressing the problems of the nearly eight million low-income children who are currently uninsured," said March of Dimes President Dr. Jennifer L. Howse.
Based on legislation introduced by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Rep. Julia Carson (D-IN), significant provisions of the new law will:
give states and school districts the option to share data from the School Lunch Program more easily with Medicaid and CHIP agencies;
create a demonstration project to find the most effective ways that WIC agencies can identify uninsured children and help get them enrolled in child health insurance programs; and
establish a small grant program to enable states to involve school lunch programs, WIC agencies and Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) sponsors in innovative efforts to identify eligible children and help get them insured.
According to a recent Urban Institute study, approximately 75 percent of all low-income uninsured children age 6-11 — and 65 percent of all low-income uninsured children age 12-17 — are members of families in which one or more children participate in the school lunch program. A total of 3.9 million uninsured low-income children are members of such families. Nearly half of all uninsured low-income children under age 6 live in families that participate in WIC, and there are nearly 1 million uninsured children in families receiving WIC. An estimated one in four low-income children who participates in the School Lunch Program or has a sibling who participates is uninsured.
March of Dimes Helps Secure CDC Funds for New State-Based Birth Defects Surveillance Programs The Birth Defects and Pediatric Genetics Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced the availability of fiscal year (FY) 2000 funds for the development of state-based birth defects surveillance programs and the use of surveillance data for public health programs.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the cooperative agreement program will be used for developing and improving birth defects surveillance. Surveillance data will then be used to develop birth defects prevention programs and activities to improve the access of children born with birth defects to health services and early intervention programs.
"The advocacy of the March of Dimes was influential in the appropriation of funds to CDC, which will be used for state programs that are central to the missions of both organizations," said Dr. J. David Erickson, chief of CDC’s Birth Defects and Genetic Diseases Branch.
These new cooperative agreements, although similar to the cooperative agreements with the current 18 states, will focus specifically on: 1) states with no birth defects surveillance systems; and 2) states with newly implemented or ongoing surveillance systems. The CDC anticipates that three to six awards will be made in each of the two categories, and that the average awards will be $100,000 (ranging between $50,000 and $150,000) per year.
The effective date of the cooperative agreements is expected to be around October 1 for a project period of up to three years. New York Gift Annuities Bill The March of Dimes recently urged governor George Pataki to sign legislation relating to charitable gift annuities (A. 9673 / S. 5740). The bill would raise from $80,000 to $500,000 the reserve threshold that has been in effect since 1941.
Enactment of this legislation will expand opportunities for New York residents to participate in one of the most popular and easy to understand charitable life income arrangements currently available. This legislation would benefit both donors and charities across the Empire State.
Gift annuities are a contract between a donor and the charity of his or her choice, benefiting the donor or the donor’s designee by providing a guaranteed lifetime income that is protected by contractual agreement with the charity. In addition, the donor is entitled to claim the contribution, less the amount he or she will receive back, as an income tax deduction. The bill retains New York’s strict consumer protections, including a requirement that charities offering such annuities have been in continuous operation for at least 10 years.
"Currently, New York is one of only 10 states that impose registration requirements on charities issuing Charitable Gift Annuities. New York’s rules are the most stringent in the nation, limiting the ability of New York donors and charities to take advantage of this important income arrangement," said March of Dimes President Dr. Jennifer L. Howse. "The bill now before the Governor would reduce the complexity of offering this option in New York by exempting charitable annuity societies with reserves of less than $500,000 from the cumbersome permit and application process while leaving intact important consumer protections."
Ohio Governor Signs Birth Defects Surveillance Bill After more than three years of work by the March of Dimes and two years since a task force was established by the Department of Health, Ohio will soon establish a Birth Defects Information System. The Healthy Baby Bill (H.B. 534) was signed by Gov. Bob Taft on July 6.
Introduced on January 4, the bill went through five hearings in the House Health Committee, then to the House of Representatives where it passed by a vote of 94 to 1. In the Senate, it was subject to three hearings before it passed by a vote of 33 to 0. The House concurred with the Senate on May 24.
Throughout this process, the March of Dimes Ohio Chapter provided data, assistance with drafting legislative language, testimony on behalf of the initiative and grassroots support. These efforts received an important boost when March of Dimes national Board of Trustee member and former U.S. Representative Susan Molinari (R-NY) gave the keynote address to over 200 legislators and volunteers at the Ohio Chapter’s "Day at the Capital."
Tennessee Governor Signs Birth Defects Registry Enhancement Bill The March of Dimes 18-month pursuit of a bill to improve the Birth Defects Registry in Tennessee has come to a successful end. Governor Don Sundquist signed the Birth Defects Registry Enhancement Bill (H.B. 1326/S.B. 1678) into law on June 21. Tennessee now has a Birth Defects Registry that will accept data on the number and type of birth defects from "pilot project" areas participating in the Registry. The Registry will provide epidemiological data and information on available services to families of children born with birth defects.
Birth Defects Registry pilot projects will be developed with Regional Perinatal Centers that volunteer to partner with the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH). The use of pilot sites will allow TDH to assess the cost and develop expertise in active care ascertainment before involving more hospitals and creating a statewide system.
The Northeast Tennessee Regional Perinatal Center will be the first to pilot the Birth Defects Registry. The data on the number and types of birth defects in northeast Tennessee will help TDH determine how best to allocate funding and staff resources in that area.
The data collected will also be forwarded to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to allow Tennessee to participate in CDC’s nationwide tracking and trend analysis on the incidence of birth defects.
The Registry contains a referral-to-service mechanism, whereby a family whose child has a birth defect can indicate if it would like to receive information about existing state services. The TDH will also develop and disseminate information about the Birth Defects Registry to participating perinatal centers for use by interested families.
New Associate Director of State and Chapter Affairs The March of Dimes Office of Government Affairs has named Jennifir L. Birtwhistle as associate director of State and Chapter Affairs. Birtwhistle will join the Foundation this August after serving as manager of Legislative Affairs for the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports in Washington, D.C.
Birtwhistle has also served as an Assistant for the Legal Affairs Department and Forest Resources Group of the American Forest and Paper Association, as well as Legal Assistant for Birtwhistle & Gibson, P.C.
Birtwhistle received her MA in government from the Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts and Sciences in 1998.
