Audio Replay: Catholic Charities USA's Briefing on the Inextricable Link Between a Veto of SCHIP and Poverty ...( ALEXANDRIA Va. Oct. 3 -- An audi...),Health

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An audio replay is now available of Catholic Charities USA's Oct. 2 briefing discussing what impact the president's intended veto on State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) would have on reducing poverty in America.

Catholic Charities USA is urging President Bush not to veto legislation to improve the highly successful program that provides health insurance coverage to poor children, and is asking him to keep his promise to America's children and sign this bill into law.

To hear first hand from Catholic Charities agencies and SCHIP parents just how vital this program is to low-income families, listen to the 20 minute briefing by calling (800) 475-6701 and enter access code 889528.

Participants on the call included:

-- Candy Hill, senior vice president for social policy for Catholic

Charities USA;

-- Shelia Haennicke, assistant communications director for Catholic

Charities of Chicago;

-- Hebron Morris of Chicago, a working father of two whose children

are receiving SCHIP; and

-- Joyce Campbell, director of community and government relations

for Catholic Charities of Trenton, New Jersey.

"It is clearly not just or humane to reduce a program that provides health insurance to children, the number of whom is growing," said Campbell on the call. "It is unreasonable to think that at a time when we know housing costs are going up and many working poor families are housing burdened, that there would be an expectation that they could afford to pay for health insurance. The president's [veto of] SCHIP would leave an additional 28,000 children in NJ without health care. The pieces just don't fit together. And that's what those living day to day, paycheck to paycheck tell us at Catholic Charities."

Catholic Charities USA's members -- more than 1,700 local agencies and institutions nationwide -- provide help and creat
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