Rally at state Capitol to focus on health care for children

Hundreds of Twin Cities children are expected to rally at the State Capitol Monday to call for comprehensive health care reform.

Rep. Betty McCollum, Rep. Bobby Joe Champion and other lawmakers are expected to attend the rally, which is sponsored by the Minnesota Children's Defense Fund.

Marc Kimball from the Children's Defense Fund said insuring children makes good economic sense because kids without health coverage have been shown to have longterm problems.

"They will be behind in school; they will have long term health problems that are much more expensive a lot of times; they will be forced to go to the emergency room because they don't have coverage to go get preventive care or to go see a doctor when they need to," Kimball said. "And that is much more expensive for everybody."

An estimated nine million children across the country are without health insurance. 85,000 children are uninsured in Minnesota. Kimball said federal health reform efforts should reduce those numbers.

"We want to make sure that as health care reform goes forward...it includes provisions to make sure that all children are covered so that we don't have nine million kids who are uninsured," he said.

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