The election is over and soon leaders will be returning to the state capitol to address the pressing issues facing the state, including a looming budget deficit.

As they gather around committee tables to begin to make decisions about what to keep and what to cut, we urge them to think of another table and another set of decisions as they make their choices. Every day across the state, as the economy worsens and job losses increase, families sit at the kitchen table and wonder how they are going to pay for the very core things their family needs: food, shelter, health care.

As anxiety rises, families are searching for supports they can count on. One historic effort where leaders crossed party lines and worked together for Utah families stands out as a foundation for stability: the state's efforts to provide health security to families through Utah's Children's Health Insurance Program.

The good news is that over the past decade, there has been great bipartisan progress toward building a strong program of health-care coverage for children in the state. When the Children's Health Insurance Program was first created 10 years ago, few people polled reported knowing someone personally who needed to access such a program, but they agreed that ensuring that all children have health-care coverage should be a priority.

What a difference a decade makes. With our deepening economic crisis, today nearly everyone knows someone who, despite having a good job, cannot afford coverage for themselves or their children.

This year will be a challenging year for state leaders as they look at ways to address state budget challenges and seek ways to stabilize the state in an incredibly difficult economic period. We encourage them to pay close attention to the immediate needs of Utah families.

While so much attention has been focused on the housing crisis, a recent Kaiser Family Foundation report revealed when families sit at the kitchen table and struggle over how to pay their bills, health-care costs remain the single greatest anxiety for working families.

It should tell you something that even as nearly 10,000 homes enter into foreclosure every day that families are still less worried about how to pay for their mortgage than how to pay for health care.

Indeed, as families suddenly find themselves losing jobs, their savings, and are unable to pay for the basic necessities, CHIP plays a critical role in helping them maintain their economic stability. Through CHIP children are more likely to have well-child visits and childhood vaccinations, more consistent medical treatment, and fewer hospitalizations than uninsured children. CHIP provides cost-effective affordable health coverage to more than 35,000 Utah children in working families. All parents pay premiums and Utah receives $4 in federal funds for every $1 the state spends.

Utah needs a strong CHIP program because private health coverage doesn't reach all children -- nor can it. Private coverage is covering fewer families because small businesses increasingly cannot afford to provide that coverage. In Utah, less than half the private sector employers offer health coverage to their employees. Even fewer offer coverage to the workers' children.

But more than that, CHIP offers something else: security at a time when families need hope more than ever. When you are trying to protect your family from the threat of bankruptcy that can come with one unexpected illness -- a hospitalization for asthma, an emergency appendectomy, a diagnosis of cancer -- the knowledge that you can get your kids covered isn't just a comfort -- it's a lifesaver.

We should thank those on both sides of the aisle who put politics aside and led the fight to strengthen coverage for Utah's kids. Their unity and commitment built a strong program that would be there for us in the event of a rainy day. Well, that day has certainly arrived.

After a decade of bipartisan work to provide this security to families when they need it, now is the time to be as resolved as ever in our commitment to preserving it.

Karen Crompton is executive director of Voices for Utah Children.