This party needs more CHIPs

Ok, forgive me for the lame PCU reference.  This is an important issue, and was a great interview.

On Sunday, August 24, I was joined by Geoff Wool of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.  The topic of discussion was Texas’ CHIP program and Children’s Medicaid, both programs for providing medical insurance for kids whose families cannot afford it.

Key points we touched on:

• As many at 800,000 children in Texas are eligibile for CHIP or Medicaid, but are not signed up for the programs.
• A large number of enrollees lose their coverage every year simply because they do not re-enroll.  Families that have lost coverage can regain it simply by applying again.
• It is the same application for both CHIP and Children’s Medicaid.
• The MAXIMUM cost of these programs is $50!

Income requirements and more information can be found at www.chipmedicaid.org.  It is truly every child’s right to have access to health care.  They didn’t choose where they were born!

The podcast of this interview is available at www.talk1370.com/pages/405616.php.

This Week’s Show

So I did something that I had never done before for this week’s show.  I took a cool little handheld recorder and did an interview at the Austin Humane Society.  Lisa Starr, their marketing director, was my tour guide and gave me a behind-the-scenes look at the daily operations of the AHS.

Amongst many other things, we discussed the donation drive that is taking place THIS SUNDAY, in partnership with Mix 94.7, from 1 to 4pm at the Humane Society.  Their address is 124 West Anderson Lane and a list of “wish list” items can be found here.

Tune in this Sunday to hear a lot of animal noises and to find out what’s going on at the Austin Humane Society.

Last Week’s Show

I was at a beach earlier this week (don’t tell anyone) so sorry I haven’t posted.  Last week I was joined by Carol Johnson of the Care Communities and Elizabeth Hummer from CASA of Travis County.

The Care Communities will be having their iCare Gala on Thursday, August 21 at 6:30pm.  It will be a great opportunity to learn more about the wonderful organization, and to pay tribute to a handful of Austin residents who make our city a better place.

The Speak Up for Kids CASA 5K is coming up on Sunday, September 7 at the Domain (very chic, I know).  Anyone who cares about our little ones is encouraged to come out, run or walk, and “become a part of a powerful solution.”  You can read more about CASA on my previous post HERE.

ASGA

I wanted to get some of the information up from yesterday’s show on Talk Radio 1370am.  If you missed it, I should have the podcast up soon.

Websites & Phone Numbers:

Autism Society of America

Autism Society of Greater Austin - (512) 479-4199

Spectrum Social and Recreation Services - (512) 524-5482

This Weekend’s Show

As I mentioned a couple days ago, I’ll have some clips from a forum on education reform as well as an interview with Gov. Roy Romer.

I also have a phone interview with Linda Kloss, discussing medical identity theft and an interview with a couple folks from Americans for Prosperity.

Listen on Sunday!  It’s good for you.

Have a great weekend, and see you next week!

A video

Never done this before, let’s see what happens.

Back in April, our parent company dedicated an entire work day to volunteering at a local nonprofit.  We chose the Capital Area Food Bank.  You can read about the food bank and a little about what we did on this post.

One of our awesome engineers put this video together about they day.  It’s also posted on the Food Bank blog – austinfoodbank.wordpress.com.

A Nation at Risk

Regular readers of the Inside Austin blog know that this is a blog about local issues and the local organizations and individuals addressing those needs. But when I was invited to the Education Commission of the State’s National Forum on Education Policy, I knew I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hear from some of the most well know education policy-makers in the country.

Besides, there was a free lunch.

The lunch I attended was a panel discussion of “A Nation at Risk,” the 1983 report on the state of our country’s public schools, and how that report affected the system here in the U.S. The overwhelming feeling shared by the panel members was that, while the report was a groundbreaking document and led to many educational reform policies, in general the country has done little to improve our public school system and we continue to lag behind other industrialized nations.

This week on Inside Austin, we will be playing some excerpts from the discussion, along with an interview that I got from Gov. Roy Romer, Chairman of the Ed in ’08 Campaign. Gov. Romer’s organization said this about “A Nation at Risk” 25 years later:

“While the national conversation about education would never be the same, stunningly few of the Commission’s recommendations actually have been enacted. Now is not the time for more educational research or reports or commissions. We have enough commonsense ideas, backed by decades of research, to significantly improve American schools. The missing ingredient isn’t even educational at all. It’s political. Too often, state and local leaders have tried to enact reforms of the kind recommended in A Nation at Risk only to be stymied by organized special interests and political inertia. Without vigorous national leadership to improve education, states and local school systems simply cannot overcome the obstacles to making the big changes necessary to significantly improve our nation’s K-12 schools.”

Tune in this Sunday to hear more!