The Office of Child Health Advocacy and Policy supports the advocacy goals of Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. Each year, Children’s works to positively influence federal, state, and local public policy decisions related to children’s health and well-being.

We work with departments throughout Children’s, patients and their families, health care professionals, community groups, and government officials. We are nonpartisan and proudly serve as child health experts and as a resource for our elected officials. We work for children!

Latest News

White House May Soften Health Policy (May 8) — The Bush administration appears to be softening a policy that states have complained hindered their efforts to expand health-care coverage for poor children. 10M children worldwide die from lack of health care (May 6) — More than 200 million children worldwide under age 5 do not get basic health care, according to a U.S.-based charity. Middle class uninsured kids' health risk almost as high as poor children's (May 3) — Poor and middle-class children share at least one frightening fact: If they are not insured, each group is likely to go without any health care. Number of uninsured U.S. residents projected to rise by 1.1M for each percentage point increase in unemployment rate (April 29) — For every one point rise in the U.S. unemployment rate, the number of uninsured is projected to increase by 1.1 million people according to a recent analysis. Klobuchar Calls on Federal Trade Commission to investigate pharmaceutical company for price gouging on pediatric drug (April 25) — Klobuchar wants FTC to examine anticompetitive behavior after price of infant heart drug rose 18-fold. Children's thanks the entire Minnesota delegation to the US House of Representatives for Support of Medicaid legislation (April 24) — The House of Representatives passed H.R. 5613, the Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008, which would prohibit seven damaging Medicaid rules from going into effect until April 1, 2009 Surgeons want more devices scaled to fit children (April 24) — Limited profit potential makes firms less likely to respond. House votes to block cutbacks in Medicaid (April 23) — The House voted Wednesday to block the Bush administration from cutting federal spending on Medicaid for the poor by $13 billion over the next five years.

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, held a news conference at Children's on March 8 to raise awareness of the sudden - and dramatic - increase in the cost of a drug commonly used to treat heart defects in premature infants. The drug has been used for more than 40 years. Children’s staff brought the inexplicable price increase to the attention of the Senator.




CEO and president Alan L. Goldbloom, MD, hosted U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison on a visit he made to Children’s in July. Rep. Ellison’s visit was part of an ongoing effort to ensure that our legislators are familiar with the work Children’s does, and are well-equipped to speak up on behalf of children and children’s hospitals on important legislative matters.



US. Rep. Michele Bachmann visited and toured Children’s on April 3. Bachmann spoke with Goldbloom and Mary Braddock, MD, director of child health policy, about the importance of Medicaid and about Children’s commitment to training the next generation of pediatric physicians.