Connecting Kids to Coverage & Text4baby
Having a baby is a health journey like no other and it’s not easy. Connecting Kids to Coverage, administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and text4baby have partnered to make it easier for moms to take charge of their family’s health. Join our ongoing activities to help ensure that eligible moms can easily obtain free or low-cost health coverage and access critical health and safety information through text4baby.
Get Involved
Check out our tools to support you in connecting more moms to text4baby and Medicaid/CHIP.
- Fact Sheet with 12 detailed strategies for spreading the word.
- Download and print this card that will help pregnant women and new mothers sign up for text4baby and link them to free or low-cost health coverage through Medicaid and CHIP. For the Spanish version click here.
- Check out our webinar for more ideas: Need audio? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to request the full file.
A Shared Mission
During Connecting Kids to Coverage and Text4baby Enrollment Day on February 28, 2012, Cindy Mann, CMS Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Services, spoke about the partnership's relevance to the CHIP Reauthorization Act. “On the third anniversary of this law being enacted, we are providing an important new tool that can help connect mothers and children to affordable coverage. This new tool is an important vehicle for reaching young mothers.”
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin said of this partnership, “Text-messaging is a part of the culture in terms of how we communicate. Using text-messaging to help conduct outreach to families about health coverage for their children is just one more way that the appropriate use of technology is enhancing how we make sure pregnant women and children get the health care they need.”
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also remarked, “Through CHIPRA, the health care law and this partnership, we are helping more and more women across the country have the insurance and information they need to have healthy babies and keep them healthy as they grow up.”
Check out coverage from the launch events:
- National press release
- HHS press release
- Todd Park's HHS Blog
- Local event in Chicago
- Local event in Miami
Media Coverage
- Univision
- Metro Latino
- Nurse.com
- 10 News
- News OK
- Logan County Currier and The Oklahoma Eagle
- Telemedicine
- Arizona Department of Health
There were also 16 submissions to the MomsRising Connecting Kids to Coverage and text4baby blog carnival! The MomsRising website has a reach of over 3.4 million readers and 18,014 followers on Facebook.
- Connecting Kids to Coverage and Text4Baby: A New Partnership that Clicks!, Cindy Mann
- Connecting Kids to Coverage and Making it Meaningful for Moms (and Dads), Natasha Robinson
- Technology and Innovation Supporting Health, Kimberly Bassett
- Text4Baby and Johnson & Johnson: A public-private partnership for public health, Susan Can & Sarah Ingersoll
- The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition: Partnering to Provide Health Information and Coverage, Sarah Ingersoll
- Boosting health care enrollment for pregnant women and kids in MI, Erin Sloan-Turner
- The “Connecting Kids to Coverage” Challenge is an important tool toward improving children’s health, Karen Crompton
- Text4Baby Empowers Moms With Info on the National Breastfeeding Helpline, Canielle Preston
- When Change Happens, Daryn Kirkpatrick
- Emphasizing healthy child development – from birth to adulthood, Matthew Wright
- Making the Online Connection for Children’s Health, Claudia Page
- Enrolling more children into health coverage gets them one step closer to better, life-long development, Amy Swanson
- Using Technology to Connect in New Ways in Illinois, Kathy Chan
- Building Blocks for Healthy Babies, Dayanne Leal
- Welcome Children to the World with Health Care Coverage, Cathy Hope
- Public Programs that Work– Good News on Children’s Coverage, Gene Lewit