TomPaine: Immoral Lack Of Care

[marmar]

Immoral Lack Of Care
Casey Aden-Wansbury
March 02, 2007


Casey Aden-Wansbury is the Director of Communications at the Children's Defense Fund .

Janneth, 16 , Brenda, 13, and Guadalupe, nine—three sisters, who live just outside San Francisco—all have severe medical conditions. Janneth, the oldest, has chronic tonsillitis, Brenda has asthma and Guadalupe is severely anemic. The family is without health insurance and cannot afford to pay for medicine and doctor’s visits for the girls. Their mother, Teresa, says that they lost health coverage because the Medicaid official claims her reauthorization packet was received late. And subsequent applications became ensnarled in red tape. As their mother attempted to breach the wall of bureaucratic delay and entanglement, Janneth, Brenda and Guadalupe continued to suffer.

This case is not unique. More than 9 million children in our country are without health insurance, nearly 90 percent of them in working families. Unfortunately, the national crisis around children’s health care is getting worse as states are running out of money for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). A bipartisan letter sent on February 23 from the National Governors Association to congressional leaders urges increased funding for the program. Without greater support, some governors charge that they will have to take measures like freezing enrollment, restricting eligibility, increasing premiums charged to low-income families or reducing benefits like dental and vision care. Such steps would only exacerbate the problems that currently deny children the critical care they need. But even if SCHIP is fully funded, millions of children will still be excluded from health care coverage.

Up until now, Medicaid and the SCHIP program have made great strides in providing children with health insurance. But even with their successes, one out of every nine of our children is still without health insurance and millions more are underinsured. As Congress considers reauthorization of SCHIP this year, we have a unique opportunity to take the next logical, achievable and moral step that would guarantee comprehensive health and mental health care to all children and pregnant women. We at the Children's Defense Fund propose a plan whereby children’s health coverage under Medicaid and SCHIP would be consolidated into a single program. This will include a guaranteed, comprehensive benefits package nationwide for children whose family incomes are at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level (topping at about $62,000 a year for a family of four). ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/02/immoral_lack_of_care.php

[bleedingheart]

1. You would not believe the hoops that people in need must jump through

in order to get assistance.

I think that it would a great service to have volunteers help people fill out those damn forms.