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Washington PostConsumer advocates oppose the rule because it bases affordability on how much employees would pay to cover themselves, not on the cost of covering their entire family. As a result, they say, many workers will be unable to afford family coverage, yet their spouses and children will be ineligible to get help to buy insurance. An estimated 3.9 million dependents would be affected, according to one estimate.“The proposed rule excludes people Congress intended to cover,” said Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus Campaign for Children, which wrote a letter to Treasury signed by more than100 advocacy groups, including the...

Washington - A coalition of 83 national and state advocates sent today a letter urging congressional leadership to support The Children’s Budget Act (S. 1396). The legislation would require the White House to submit an annual children’s budget.“For the same reason we balance our checkbooks, we should be creating a children’s budget – we measure what matters to us to make better decisions about how and when to spend money,” said First Focus Campaign for Children (FFCC) President Bruce Lesley.The Children’s Budget Act, introduced by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), would create an independent and comprehensive accounting of all investments...

MedPage TodayMore than 100 national and state organizations, including medical groups, are urging the president and lawmakers to fix a glitch in the healthcare reform law that could prevent families from gaining affordable healthcare coverage.Under the ACA, the test of whether an employer-sponsored plan is unaffordable -- and thus whether the employee is eligible to buy a potentially more affordable plan in their state's exchange system with the help of government subsidies -- is based on the cost of coverage for the individual employee. If the cost of self-only coverage for an individual employee does not exceed 9.5% of...

Washington – A coalition of 102 national and state advocates today sent a letter urging President Barack Obama and congressional leadership to fix a problem with the U.S. Treasury Department’s interpretation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health care reform law that, if uncorrected, could deny affordable health care to hundreds of thousands of children and spouses. “The ACA’s intent is clear – make health care affordable. Legal wrangling shouldn’t stand in the way of that common-sense goal,” said First Focus Campaign for Children (FFCC) President Bruce Lesley. The...

Washington – Last week both chambers of Congress passed a bipartisan package to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance through the end of the year, an important win for families and communities across the country. The legislation did not include proposed restrictions to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) that would have cost low-income immigrant families an average of $1,800 annually, impacting up to 5.5 million children. In response to the bill’s passage without this harmful provision, First Focus Campaign for Children President Bruce Lesley issued the following statement:“Every year, the Child Tax Credit protects millions of kids from...

San Diego Union-Tribune...“The child tax credit is one of the most fundamental supports that families have in terms of raising their kids,” said Bruce Lesley, president of FirstFocus, a nonprofit children’s organization in Washington, D.C. “These are families that are paying taxes and that is why they get a credit.”He said about 5.5 million children in the United States have at least one undocumented parent, but that most of those kids are U.S. citizens themselves.Nationwide, 22 percent of children live in families with income below the federal poverty level. The child tax...

Washington - U.S. House of Representatives Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) introduced legislation today to reauthorize the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The “Student Success Act” and the “Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act” would fall short on federal funding commitments to reduce school financing and student performance gaps, eliminate existing standards for teacher qualification, weaken school performance standards without offering a replacement, limits schools’ class size reduction efforts, and does not deliver an increased investment in early education. In response to the bill’s introduction, First Focus Campaign for Children President Bruce Lesley released the...

Yuma SunA national bipartisan child advocacy group named Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva a 2011 Champion for Children. He was one of 35 congressmen given First Focus Campaign for Children's highest congressional honor.In choosing recipients, the group “noted leaders (who) demonstrated extraordinary initiative by spearheading activities such as sponsoring hearings or garnering the support of their colleagues to improve the health and well-being of children,” according to the announcement.“Children need to be the first focus not only of Congress, but of our entire country's thinking about what kind of future we're building,” Grijalva said.“Thanks to First Focus and other groups...

Washington – A key congressional subcommittee voted today to pass legislation authored by Congresswoman Judy Biggert (R-IL) and endorsed by the First Focus Campaign for Children. The Homeless Children and Youth Act of 2011 (H.R. 32) would align the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development definition of “homeless” children with the definition used by the U.S. Department of Education. Enactment of this legislation would make all of America’s 1.6 million homeless children eligible for shelter and supportive services like health care. In response to its passage by the Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing, and Community Opportunity of the U.S. House...

In These TimesCurrently, the CTC is one federal tax benefit that people can claim using an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) instead of a social security number. This effectively makes it available to undocumented workers—those who lack formal authorization.Noting that child poverty is already aggravated by the economic crisis, First Focus President Bruce Lesley, President told In These Times, “When a policy makes it harder for children—any children—to succeed, that policy undermines America’s future.”More