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NYT/Herbert: When Dollars Trump Compassion



 
 
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Old June 20th 07, 12:35 PM posted to alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.immigration,sci.med,misc.kids
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Default NYT/Herbert: When Dollars Trump Compassion

The New York Times
June 19, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist
When Dollars Trump Compassion

By BOB HERBERT

You won't see these stories on television, but Marian Wright Edelman
and Dr. Irwin Redlener could talk to you all day and all night about
children whose lives have been lost or ruined because they didn't have
health insurance.

This is not a situation one associates with a so-called advanced
country. That you can have sick children wasting away in the United
States, the wealthiest nation on the planet, because medical treatment
that could relieve their suffering is withheld by men and women with
dollar signs instead of compassion in their eyes is beyond
unconscionable.

Ms. Edelman is the president of the Children's Defense Fund, and Dr.
Redlener is president of the Children's Health Fund.

Both are appalled at the embarrassing fact that nine million American
children have no health coverage at all. Among them are children with
diabetes, chronic asthma, heart conditions, life-threatening allergies
and so on. In many instances they are left untreated until it is too
late.

Leaving children uninsured is a form of Russian roulette, Dr. Redlener
said.

"All children should be covered," said Ms. Edelman.

Congress and the president could do something about this right now. Of
the nine million children without coverage, six million are already
eligible for either Medicaid or the popular State Children's Health
Insurance Program, or S-chip, which covers children whose parents earn
too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private
health insurance. The bulk of the funding for S-chip comes from the
federal government.

S-chip, which had strong bipartisan support when it was established 10
years ago, is currently up for reauthorization in Congress. The
program should be expanded as part of a broader effort to cover as
many of the six million eligible-but-uninsured kids as possible.

Eligible children remain outside of S-chip and Medicaid for a variety
of reasons, including the following: because there is insufficient
funding to cover them; because families do not realize their children
qualify for coverage; because red tape and complicated regulations
discourage families from signing up.

A number of S-chip re-authorization proposals are being developed. The
best-case scenario would be legislation - costing as much as $50
billion in additional funding over the next five years - that would
cover millions of additional youngsters from poor and working-poor
families. This would put the U.S. on the road toward universal
coverage for children.

Ten billion dollars a year is considered a pittance when it comes to
funding wars and tax cuts for the very wealthy. But it's suddenly a
lot of money when the subject is the health of American children.

One of the worst scenarios has been offered by President Bush in his
White House budget proposal. That calls for just $4.8 billion in new
funding for S-chip over the next five years. The result, according to
the Congressional Budget Office, would be a net loss of coverage for
1.4 million children.

The old expression was "taking candy from a baby." The White House is
ready to take away vitally needed medicine.

Negotiations over the reauthorization of S-chip are under way. It will
be interesting to see whether the Democrats who crowed so much about
their newfound power when they took control of Congress will stand
tall for the kids of the poor and working poor, and whether there are
enough caring Republicans to resurrect the spirit of bipartisanship
from a decade ago.

As the heat gets turned up on this issue, the White House appears to
be falling into its old habit of creating its own reality.

The Congressional Budget Office and most researchers have agreed on
the six million figure for the number of youngsters who are eligible
for government-sponsored health coverage but remain unenrolled -
roughly four million for Medicaid and two million for S-chip. This has
not been controversial.

Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human Services began
circulating a study that tries to make the case that the total number
of eligible but uninsured youngsters is a mere 794,000, an absurdly
low figure.

If you can wave a magic wand and make five million poor kids
disappear, you no longer have to think about caring for them.

Advocates like Dr. Redlener and Ms. Edelman don't have that luxury.

"Kids who grow up with poor access to health care carry a high risk of
having underdiagnosed and undertreated chronic illness, both physical
and emotional," said Dr. Redlener. "We know what to do. We should
fully fund this effort at the $50 billion level and make coverage
mandatory for all children."

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/19...9herbert.html?

 




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