Kathy Paz-Mingledorff, 29, of Danbury Forest in Springfield will go down in history of being the poster child of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

The SCHIP Program provides health insurance to 11 million low-income children and pregnant women who are legal immigrants. It helps them get the doctor's visits and medicines they need to stay healthy.

HER STORY started in March 2002, when at the age of 22, she was in the U.S. Marine Corps and in perfect health. She became pregnant with her son Alex and for some mysterious reason, he was born 15 weeks prematurely. He stayed in intensive care for three months and required high-cost specialists and medications. He was given Medicaid and remained on that for his first two years.

Because of all Alex’s expensive health care needs, Kathy Paz-Mingledorff was unable to work. If she returned to work, the social workers told her that her Medicaid coverage would stop. When he son turned 4, she looked into the SCHIP program and was approved.

"A lot of people feel like SCHIP is a handout — and they disagree with its approval because they feel like they're just promoting poverty and allowing people to just manipulate the government and take money," said Paz-Mingledorff. "But we wouldn't have been able to survive without Medicaid and SCHIP."

Her son was seen by neurologists, cardiologists, pediatric eye specialists and gastroenterologists. He was tube-fed 100 percent of the time up until age 2. Without SCHIP, Paz-Mingledorff said she couldn't afford to purchase Alex’s supplies — tape, IV pole and feeding tube that went into his stomach.

"There's so much stuff you have to have, and that wasn't including the medication or the physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy," she said.

With seven hospitalizations, the expenses were astronomical: $800,000 by the time Alex was 2 and $1.5 million by the time he was 5.

"We had to make choices that would affect whether (son Alex) would live or die," she said.

PAZ-MINGLEDORFF REMAINED on SCHIP for two years, then eventually she found a better job and obtained private insurance. "We used the program as it was intended to,” she said. “It was a step for us to be able to get back to supporting ourselves. It helped us to make it."

"Kathy's story was very compelling because the insurance that she had through Medicaid and SCHIP really helped her to move forward to the position she is now," said Donna Dei, state director of program services for the Maryland National Capital Area Chapter of the March of Dimes. "SCHIP helped her over the hump."

“[Alex] is doing very well now, but that did not come without a price tag and without the need for some type of health coverage to get the family through."

Paz-Mingledorff has been active with the March of Dimes for six years, since her son turned 1. As founder and president of Premies Today, a nationwide support organization for families of premature children, she's also been an on-call advocate for the organization.

In 2007, the first time the SCHIP bill came up for reauthorization, Paz-Mingledorff was invited to testify on Capitol Hill on behalf of families of children with disabilities. The bill passed both the House of Representatives and Senate, but President Bush vetoed it twice.

"That was pretty devastating," Paz-Mingledorff said.

The reauthorization deadline was extended to March 2009, so when the Democrats took the House this last election, they pushed for the passage again.

Because of her work with the March of Dimes, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had read Paz-Mingledorff’s testimony and asked her to speak at a press conference in December to help pass the bill.

"It was amazing to be part of the democratic process," Paz-Mingledorff said. "Afterwards, we were walking with all these powerful congressmen and people who make the moves in Washington and we walked through and there were hundreds of cameras taking pictures of the kids."
"We were extremely happy with the passing,” said Paz-Mingledorff “When it was going up to be signed by the Senate, Nancy Pelosi wanted the kids up there for a conference she was having. … It was an amazing day."

President Obama authorized expanding SCHIP coverage from 7 million to 11 million youngsters earlier this month.

Paz-Mingledorff is married to Adam Mingledorff, 31, and besides Alex, now 7, they have a daughter, Liliana, 5. Her children attend kindergarten at Kings Park Elementary. She has her own small business, Lily Lane Cakes, and works for a contractor for U.S. Customs in Herndon.

Today, her son Alex still has a feeding tube and experiences a lot of the effects of his prematurity. But overall he's pretty healthy.