The reason for our nervous Smile…

The alarm is ringing out across the country, even on late night television (Thank you, Jimmy Kimmel!): 9 million children will be kicked off their health insurance unless Congress takes action.

In October, in the wake of the tragic Las Vegas shooting, we noted that the failure to reauthorize the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program had placed the popular, bipartisan program on life-support.

Last week we urged you to keep reaching out to your elected officials in Washington to reauthorize CHIP before moving forward with the deeply unpopular tax bill.  Among the many flaws of the bill, it codifies tax breaks for private jets, craft beer and winery profits, and maintains a tax break for the largest golf course owners in the nation at a cost of nearly $1.5 billion a year that could otherwise be spent to provide one million children reliable access to health care.   

Thanks to CHIP and Medicaid, the number of children in southeast PA with health insurance has never been higher. But even with those programs in place, 37,000 children in southeast Pennsylvania (110,000 in PA) remain uninsured.

That’s why this week, when health care and last-minute gifts are on your mind, we are asking for your help as we activate PCCY’s very first crowdfunding effort to cover the cost of providing urgent dental care for 1000 children. 

Thousands of kids in southeastern PA have not seen a dentist in a year and the research is clear–these kids are three times more likely to miss school because of dental pain.  That’s why for the past 14 years, thousands of children in southeastern PA have been able to see a dentist free of charge through PCCY’s Give Kids a Smile event.

That’s about to end.  This year we don’t have the funding to make this care available, which means we have to close the doors to dental care for kids with few alternatives.

That would have been terrible news in any of the 14 years we’ve held Give Kids a Smile, but can you imagine turning away kids if, as we fear, PA’s CHIP program is shuttered?

It’s hard to ignore the political tumult that has gripped the nation this year. Dysfunction, division, and derision are stressing us all out. But we’ve proven time and time again that improving the lives of children brings people together. You can do something today that will keep the PCCY Smile doors open for children. 

Respond to the request for a $25 donation on the PCCY GoFundMe page for our Give Kids a Smile event and let your friends and family know why you did so.  

And, after you do that once again we ask you to call Congress and demand they PASS CHIP FIRST before the tax bill.  Let them know you put children first with your own money and its time they do the same with our nation’s resources.