Testify

Last Spring when Aubrey was in the hospital for a brutal kidney infection, I wrote about the experience from the standpoint of a parent grateful for state medical coverage. Many of you have seen this -- I posted it here as a long blog, on the Writing Mamas blogsite, and at MomsRising.org. Later, I shortened it, and submitted it to San Francisco's NPR affiliate, KQED, and it aired on Monday, February 11th.

MomsRising.org forwarded the story to the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), and, since then, I've been working with them as an advocate for insuring all children.

Earlier this week the CDF asked me to testify at a State Senate Budget Hearing on Monday April 7th at the capitol (that's Sacramento, for you out-of-staters).

Schwarzenegger's proposal would require poor families to apply for Medi-Cal every three months. Right now, it's once a year. Every three months is preposterous. Think of the bureaucracy, how this will inundate poor families with extra paperwork, and how this will inundate government workers with the same. This seems like a cruel way to whittle down the number of children receiving medical coverage .

You can read about it more extensively at this website The 100% Campaign, where the goal is to get every child in California -- and ultimately in the nation -- medically insured.

I'm pretty nervous to testify -- there'll be a lot of people there, and, dare I say, a lot of movers and shakers. However, when I take a deep breath and think about it, I know this issue matters. I know I can take a stand on this significant public issue. I can also have a voice in our democracy.

I have a conference call this afternoon with the CDF and some other organizations to prepare myself. I'll keep you posted.