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• Elect Susie Flynn
• The Marian Wright Edelman Institute
• Ms. Edelman’s bio

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Tavis: Marian Wright Edelman is a civil rights pioneer and the founder of the Children's Defense Fund. In that capacity, she's been a tireless advocate for children, surrounding issues of healthcare and economic disparities. This week, the Children's Defense Fund unveils their latest initiative, called the Healthy Child Campaign, which seeks to provide health coverage for millions of disadvantaged children. She joins us tonight from Washington. Ms. Edelman, as always, an honor to have you on the program.

Marian Wright Edelman: It's wonderful to be with you, Tavis.

Tavis: As many times as we've talked, there's one question I thought of earlier today (laughs) that I've never asked you, and I'm curious as to your take on this, and then I wanna talk about this campaign, the Healthy Child Campaign. I think everybody knows that President Bush, with his education initiative Leave No Child Behind, lifted that phrase, the long-time motto of the Children's Defense Fund. I've never asked you how you process him lifting that. His appropriating that phrase.

Edelman: Well, we oppose it very, very strongly. It's our trademark mission statement, and we are serious about it and believe in it. And to see it used in an administration that is leaving many millions of children behind without healthcare when our poverty rates are rising, when our infant mortality has been going back up in many states, and when the gap between rich and poor is greater than ever is offensive.

But this administration just does whatever it wants, but we are going to carry on and try to continue to make sure that this country leaves no child behind, including this year, leaves no child without health coverage.

Tavis: Let's talk about that, then. Before I get into your campaign specifically, it would appear, listening to some of the candidates -- if you listen to John Edwards, if you listen to Barack Obama, listen to Hillary Clinton, for example, those three, it would appear that this year, the issue of healthcare might get some traction -- and if not traction, at least conversation in this presidential election season. Are you encouraged by that at all?

Edelman: Well I am, but it needs more than rhetoric and attention, because we've gotta have concrete action. And that’s why we're getting our bill introduced, to cover all children as the State Children's Health Insurance Program comes up. And the operative word here is all. Nine million uninsured children; over five and a half million of them are minority children, three and a half million of them are white.

They are rural and suburban, they're all of our children. Ninety percent of them live in working families all over this country, trying to play by the rules. Employers don't provide coverage. So as the Congress has to consider renewal of funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, it is the time for them to finish the job, make sure that no children are left behind, and that all of them get an equal benefit package, including all those Katrina children scattered all over the country.

A child's chance to survive and live and be healthy and be able to attend in school, pay attention in school, should not depend on the lottery of geography. So this is the day for more than conversation or political issues. It's the day for every one of those candidates and every member of Congress and President Bush to commit to giving all children health insurance this year, because children are dying when they shouldn’t in this country, and they're suffering from diseases they shouldn’t have to have.

Tavis: We've been trying for some time now in this country -- and one could argue how hard we've been trying -- but certainly the conversation has been ongoing about universal healthcare. What you are saying is that we at least ought to start by covering the children. Tell me why you think that's the right place to start, number one. I got a follow-up.

Edelman: Well, I am always in favor of health insurance for everybody, but as you’ve indicated we've been debating that for a number of decades and I hope we'll get it done. But meanwhile, we've got to act on children's health. The American public wanted to start with children first. Many of the new bills that are going to be introduced by Senator Clinton and by everybody -- there are lots of new bills on children's health, wanna start with children.

They are the most cost-effective. You have only one childhood, and it is -- they're vulnerable, and the American public in our polls and focus groups and others think that it's an outrage that there are nine million uninsured children and they make the connection correctly between children's health datas and their ability to learn in school.

And so the overwhelming common sense, if we're trying to control health costs and to get children ready to be productive workers, is that they should have a healthy start. So this is the logical first step toward health insurance, and because the Congress has to act this year on children's health, they should act right and get all of them.

Not leave three million behind or six million behind or some of them behind and not have this crazy thing where two children in a single family, one could be guaranteed benefits under children's Medicaid and another be on a waiting list because they are eligible for CHIP, and you have 50 different state rules, and the bureaucracy means that millions of children fall between the cracks and children therefore are dying because they can't get the healthcare in a timely manner. So this is the opportunity to act, and it's our responsibility to act, and it's a step towards national health insurance for all.

Tavis: As I listen to you talk, Ms. Edelman, my grandmother might say "It sounds too much like right." It just makes too much sense that we would start with children where healthcare is concerned. The flip side of that argument, as you well know, given the tireless effort you’ve put in over these years, is that children often get dissed, if for no other reason because they can't vote.

So I hear your argument about how much sense it makes to start with kids, but tell me how realistic that is, given that this year and no other year, do children have a right to say and speak for themselves?

Edelman: Well they don't, and it's so hard, because they are voiceless and voteless and don't have PACs and don't lobby and don't make campaign contributions. And everybody loves to kiss them and talk about it, and you'll see a whole lot of children's health proposals. When you look at the devils of the details, it's not about children. It's about window dressing and appearing to be doing what we're not doing, and using children for other interests on bigger things.

And most of it is about money. And what I hear when I go up to the Hill, everybody -- the Congress, and try to lobby to say "We must get all children this year," the first thing they say is "We don't have the money to cover all children." It costs about $14.8 billion above cost of living increases. And I say, "What do you mean, you don't have the money?" "'Cause we've got these new (unintelligible) rules," they tell me.

I said, "Well, we didn’t pay when we went to Iraq, and we didn’t pay for those tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. And why are we changing the rules for children, and besides, children are prevention and children are cost effective." And we give these examples of children like little Diamante, who died from a tooth abscess out in Prince George's County last week, where we ended up paying over $250,000 for five weeks of hospitalization when if he'd had timely Medicaid and dental coverage he could have had his tooth extracted for $80.

So, common sense is too little in vogue, but we should not let any political leader tell us that we cannot afford to give our children preventive healthcare, keep them out of emergency rooms, and to get them ready for school. So it's a hard pull, but I just think this is the year when we've gotta make all of our leaders do right. And if they don't vote for children's healthcare, I don't care who they are, we shouldn’t vote for them next year.

And the operative word is all children -- God didn’t say some -- and that all children should have an equal benefit, because God did not make two classes of children. So I hope we'll hold our leaders accountable.

Tavis: When you say hold all of our leaders accountable, tell me how this issue is going to cut, or already starting to cut, along partisan lines, if, in fact, it is?

Edelman: Well, it is. The president's budget is a disgrace in terms of what he has asked for in the renewed funding for the Children's State Health Insurance Program. He would ask for so little money that we would end up having more than nine million uninsured children, and losing a million to a million and a half children over the next five years if his budget were to prevail.

So he low-balled children, and doesn’t seem to mind that he's broken every promise that he made to Katrina's children. We're still scattered over 40 states without health and mental health care. And so the president needs to be made to lead. But we've gotta have, again, people up on the Hill -- all of them -- not being afraid, Republicans and Democrats alike, to stand up and say that the American public wants us to cover all of our children.

And so we're examining all of the different proposals. I haven’t seen strong Republican proposals yet. I'm going up to see Senator Hatch tomorrow. But I think that we've gotta demand bipartisan action, and the commitment, again, to all. We've got a variety of proposals on the table, they don't all commit to all.

What you hear is that we wanna cover all of the currently eligible but uninsured children, which is about five to six million children who ought to be on Medicaid, out to be on CHIP, but are not getting it because of bureaucratic barriers and state foot-dragging and different standards of eligibility. All of which we're trying to correct in our bill. Our key principles are pretty simple. All children, all equal benefit package, and simple.

Tavis: I hear your point that it's starting to cut down partisan lines, and I hear your further sentiment that children ought not be used as partisan footballs. That said, tell me how it is that you're gonna justify getting to the end of this year and with Democrats controlling the House and the Senate, if this doesn’t make its way through, what are you going to have to say to me 12 months from now?

Edelman: Well, I'm going to say I am so disappointed, 'cause this is about leadership that we should not -- we should hold all of our leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike -- responsible for what they do for children. And my goodness, if you can't stand up for health coverage for all children, what can you do? When we know it saves lives, it saves children, we know that those Katrina children are down there waiting and need hope.

We know children are dying because they can't find dentists, or dying because they can't get on health coverage that they're eligible for from serious diseases that we could prevent. And so I just think this is a time for us to use this as a litmus test for whether people are serious about their rhetoric of caring about children and families.

Tavis: I wonder, Ms. Edelman, whether or not when you say Katrina's children -- I hear you, and I feel you. You happen to be an African-American, and so do I. When you say Katrina's children, I wonder whether or not the image that so many Americans get are images, pictures of colored children, and whether or not they really understand that what you're really talking about, no matter how many times you say it, is all of America's children?

Edelman: All of America's children. There are three and a half million White uninsured children, and an overwhelming number of children who need help and improved benefit packages are White. These are all of our children of all colors, and all means all. But you know that many minority children and those who are Katrina who are White as well as Black, and some Latino, have suffered the worst national disaster.

Our mental health system is a mess. They are struggling with monstrous losses nineteen months after that storm, and their mental health needs are especially acute and chronic. But so many other children -- White and Black and Latina and Asian-American -- their mental health needs are going unmet. And it costs us more money to let these children develop serious problems than to prevent them in the first place. And it's just time for us to come to our senses and to care and value our children.

Tavis: Let me close with perhaps the most important question I could ask in this conversation, which is what everyday people can do with regard to this Healthy Child Campaign to try, to your point, to get in this year all children in America covered for healthcare, and make that the first step in this campaign toward universal coverage?

Edelman: Well, Tavis, we're running our own candidate for president, and she's 10-year-old Susie Flynn. They can go to Susie's website, because her only platform is being the spokesgirl for all nine million uninsured children. And it's ElectSusie.com. Sign that petition, support the Children's Defense Fund's efforts to lay out in fact our bill to cover all children and to equalize the benefit package and to make it simple.

So ElectSusie.com. And we want Susie to set the standard of what all of our candidates and all of our political leaders should do. And it shouldn’t be up to children to have to speak for themselves. So we adults need to support Susie Flynn.

Tavis: She is an icon, a legend in her own time, a treasure in this country. Her name is Marian Wright Edelman, of course, the founder of the Children's Defense Fund. Ms. Edelman, always, as I said earlier, an honor to have you on this program. Thanks for your work.

Edelman: And thanks for your work.