Keeping health care for already-born children
“We are eating our seed corn.” — Marian Wright Edelman, Children’s Defense Fund
What a lot of love U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and 239 of his colleagues heaped on pre-babies last week. They so adore one-day-might-be children that they passed an amendment to the House health care bill that deals a harsh blow to reproductive rights. They wanted to make sure that a woman can’t easily purchase private insurance that covers abortions in a proposed insurance exchange, even with her own money.
Given their passion over fetuses, you’d think that those 240 House members would be able to whip up some enthusiasm for actual children — squalling babes-in-arms, squirming toddlers, restless junior high schoolers — who could lose their health insurance under the House version of health care reform. But try as she might, Marian Wright Edelman — head of a Washington-based children’s advocacy group, the Children’s Defense Fund — hasn’t been able to muster much concern over the proposed demise of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
CHIP — which, since 1997, has fueled creation of enormously popular and successful low-cost health insurance programs for kids in all 50 states — is expected to provide health insurance for 14 million children by 2013. The plans cover children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but who cannot afford private insurance plans. Under the House health care bill, however, the program would expire in 2013, when the bill’s provisions would set up insurance exchanges.
Working-class parents would be expected to purchase insurance for themselves and their families through the exchanges. But problems abound with that approach. First off, it would interrupt the insurance that many children already have as parents are forced to cope with a different bureaucracy to find new insurance plans. Second, the exchanges might easily be more expensive. Yes, many families would be eligible for subsidies; but there is no guarantee the policies for their children would be as affordable, or as comprehensive, as they are under the CHIP programs.
“Those exchanges are untested,” Edelman pointed out. “Why would you want to make children worse off in health care reform?
Edelman is exasperated at the attention that has been lavished on senior citizens — “My grandchildren are more important than me,” she said — and annoyed by the energy diverted by inconsequential or made-up issues, like the fraudulent death panels. She expected the debate over health care reform to allow children’s advocates to build on the success of CHIP.
She thought she’d be lobbying for a less formidable bureaucracy, so that parents could enroll their children more easily. Some states, like Georgia, use a daunting system of rules and regulations to keep children off the rolls, just as private insurers use so-called “recission” to drop consumers after they get sick. (Like Medicaid, CHIP is a program whose costs are shared by the states and the federal government.) But instead of leading the charge for a simplified system, Edelman is fighting just to keep it alive.
In some ways, the program is a victim of its success. After President George W. Bush twice vetoed expansions of CHIP, Democrats promised to pour money into the program. In February, a Democratically-controlled Congress set aside funds to keep the program alive through 2013. With that, members of Congress patted themselves on the back and went off to satisfy other constituencies.
Like the elderly, who already have Medicare. They have been coddled throughout the health care debate, as both Democrats and Republicans rushed to pander to them. You’d think that, instead, Congress would want to make sure children are healthy enough to become working adults who can support an aging population.
Now that the House has declared its unyielding support for the fetus, perhaps Congress can be persuaded to lavish a little more attention on children already born. They shouldn’t be given short shrift just because they had the audacity to leave the womb.
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89 comments Add your comment
mike
November 13th, 2009
5:26 pm
Tucker is right. Pro-life folks don’t really care about children at all. Only people who are pro-choice care about children.
So how simple the world is in Tuckerland? People who share her narrow minded views are good and people who don’t share her narrow minded views are bad.
booger
November 13th, 2009
5:28 pm
Thus the dilemma of entitlements. When you have so many they are tripping over each other, there are bound to be some complications.
jconservative
November 13th, 2009
6:33 pm
If you want to use the police power of the central government to outlaw abortion then you should also demand the use of the police power of the central government to care for those children after birth. A child is a child is a child.
But we do not, we are one of the worst countries in the western world for infant mortality.
If abortion is an abomination then lack of health care for children is an abomination.
TnGelding
November 13th, 2009
6:56 pm
jconservative
November 13th, 2009
6:33 pm
Infant mortality is hurt by mothers that smoke, drink amd use drugs, something that is all to prevalent in the greatest country in history.
Cynthia, you left out one important thing. Medicaid is going to cover families with higher incomes, thus less need for SCHIP. That said I don’t support any of the bills currently being discussed in Congress.
“The House bill sets a new income limit for Medicaid of 150 percent of the poverty line. This limit would apply to children and adults under age 65 who are not eligible for Medicare. For the first time, low-income adults who do not have dependent children (and are not elderly or disabled) would be eligible for Medicaid. (The Senate Finance Committee bill would expand Medicaid to 133 percent of the poverty line.)”
Also, Medicare Advantage (Part ‘C’) is being cut, which it should be.
Joan
November 13th, 2009
7:21 pm
If you can’t afford to raise a child, the answer is simple. Don’t have it.
Public Option Doing Swell
November 13th, 2009
8:18 pm
House Speaker Glenn Richardson has indicated the Republican meme for health care by attempting suicide Sunday night, and one major question is why law enforcement did not alert a physician to issue a 1021 to hospitalize Richardson so that he could not do harm to himself and to designate the best possible treatment for him.
This is a republican paradigm for bad healthcare Perhaps Richardson was depresed because white hick Republicans are the only legislature in the US to refuse to fund the 8th largest Metro transit system in the U.S.
Public Option Doing Swell
November 13th, 2009
8:23 pm
What most people are overlooking, and one more reason the Stupak amendment won’t survive Senate or Conference, is that it would prevent insurance companies from covering D&C’s as it is written and D&C is a widely used modality for women’s health in a large variety of situations which cause vaginal bleeding as adjunct to a hysteroscopy and/or polypectomy.
This includes irregular bleeding, polyps, and cancer among many other indications.
Are Blue Dogs and Republicans medically stupid? You betcha goshdarnit.
Public Option Doing Swell
November 13th, 2009
8:25 pm
The house bill is woefully inadequate on many fronts, and what passes won’t resemble it. It does have a number of useful components which may survive.
mike
November 13th, 2009
8:51 pm
Public Option Doing Swell -
So the guy who likes to claim that he is a medical professional is mocking someone suffering from depression for attempting suicide?
I really hope that your claims of being a medical professional is a lie, because it would be scary to think that someone like you is out there in the medical system. Your mindless hatred for those who dare not share your narrow minded views overwhelms all of your other personal characteristics. You are a sad and lonely person who has dedicated his life to mindless hatred. So sad for you.
mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack the LIAR Obama
November 13th, 2009
9:39 pm
So typical of liberals. The government should FORCE tax payers to continue to pay for poor choices people make. And it alawys for the children. Just like school funding, throw money at the problem, yet it NEVER goes away. Just curious, how much is enough?
Herby Beggs
November 13th, 2009
10:21 pm
I understand your desires for health care for children and adults. However; we cannot as a people forget to protect the innocent child waiting for birth into this world. Please let them get into this America or they cannot be insured. Don’t forget each of us were spared that mercy.
Common Sense
November 13th, 2009
10:50 pm
Ms. Tucker:
I have a question for you. When in the life of a child is a mother most a mother? When the child within her is 100% dependent on her protection and care or after the child is born and it can be totally cared for by another – even a man?
GaPeach1st
November 13th, 2009
10:53 pm
“Those exchanges are untested,” Edelman pointed out. “Why would you want to make children worse off in health care reform?”
Why would you want to make ANYBODY worse off in health care reform?
I don’t recall any attention that has been “lavished” (a word commonly used by Tucker to describe Medicare and senior citizens) on senior citizens with regard to the healhcare legislation being proposeed . . . quite the contrary. How is cutting billions out of Medicare over the next 10 years “lavishing” attention on senior citizens. I really worry about Tucker’s hatred for senior citizens; I sure would like to know where that hatred comes from.
Common Sense
November 13th, 2009
10:53 pm
P.S.
I love churches who when recognizing mothers on “Mothers Day” ask those who lost a child before they were born to also stand …………… for they truly were also mothers.
Common Sense
November 13th, 2009
10:55 pm
GaPeach1st:
You are so right. Maybe Ms. Tucker will adopt a senior citizen and take him/her into her home?
Grumpy
November 13th, 2009
11:02 pm
booger nailed it in the 2nd post
Common Sense
November 13th, 2009
11:12 pm
Ms. Tucker:
The problem with the phrase “reproductive rights” is that a woman seeking those so-called rights has already reproduced. We can debate at what point in the womb that reproduction becomes a child (conception, first heart beat, first brain wave, first reaction to sound, first thumb sucking, etc.) but the “production” is there !!
Shouldn’t the correct phrase be “delivery rights”?
WILLIAM H.
November 13th, 2009
11:57 pm
AS A SENIOR CITIZEN WHO READS MS TUCKER’S COLUMN EVERY DAY I DEFINITELY DETECT A STRONG BIAS AS IT PERTAINS TO SENIORS. MAYBE IT IS BECAUSE WE HAVE WORKED HARD AND NOW ARE CLAIMING THE EARNED FRUITS OF OUR LABORS?!
Common Sense
November 14th, 2009
12:06 am
To William H.
You (and I) will soon have the status of a “senior fetus” ………. expendable.
TnGelding
November 14th, 2009
2:56 am
Joan
November 13th, 2009
7:21 pm
Preferably, don’t conceive it.
WILLIAM H.
November 13th, 2009
11:57 pm
Wonder why that is?
Common Sense
November 14th, 2009
12:06 am
I wouldn’t go that far, but we definitely need to have a living will.
Bitter EX democrackkk
November 14th, 2009
6:39 am
Let EACH parent pay for HIS/HER OWN children’s healthcare! Healthcare is NOT a government responsibility NOR function! ‘Dont breed em if you cant feed em!’ Lets have some TRUE parental repsonsiblity!
STRIVE to be SMARTER than the evil controlling democrackkks WANT you to BE!
clyde
November 14th, 2009
6:45 am
Ms.Tucker,
You are going to wake up one morning in the not too distant future and discover you are one.A dreaded senior citizen.
I believe that children should be taken care of.I believed in it so strongly that my wife and I actually had two and we took care of them.in fact,in our family we have this sort of weird tradition.If we have children we take care of them.We’ve always done it without running to the government for help.We work.Many times the jobs are boring and tedious,but they put biscuits on the table.
We worked and took care of our children and it makes us angry that other people don’t.It also makes us angry to see someone like you saying it’s all right for the government to take our hard earned money and use it to raise other people mistakes.
SouthernGal
November 14th, 2009
6:53 am
Be careful of your government…why do they want abortion covered? Is this a step towards controlling who will be allowed to have children?
Gerald West
November 14th, 2009
6:57 am
Just goes to show how foolish all the actual and proposed medical payment schemes are: mulitple programs involving federal and state bureacracies, private insurers that ration health care, insurance exchanges, restrictions due to religious superstition, etc.
Why not just do it better and cheaper, like all other developed countries? Let medical providers treat everyone who needs it, without restriction; let everyone pay the medical costs with their taxes rather than endure a blizzard of application forms, medical bills, claims forms throughout the year?
Medicare for all is the workable approach. All others approaches are dumb as pig drool!
Bob
November 14th, 2009
7:21 am
Jconsevative, one of the worst in the world for infant mortality, thats an ignorant statement. Pre-natal is available to women that do not even pay for it. In most third world countries, if a woman is having problems the pregnacy is usually lost. When that happens, it does not show up in any viable statistic in regard to infant mortality. In America, that same woman gets free assistance to save the child. Everything is done to bring the baby to term and if at that time it dies, it shows up as infant mortality. In America the baby was given a chance. Can you give us the standard that is used across the world when determining infant mortality ? You can’t because each country uses it’s own. Like the above scenario, the third world baby that dies in the womb is not an infant mortality, the American example where the baby is given enough help to actually be born, then dies is an infant mortality.
In Europe, some countries won’t list a baby as an infant mortality until it’s 24 hours old, some won’t list unless the baby is born above 4 pounds. You can go to the Congo to have your next kid, I’ll take Piedmont or Northside. You are surely an Obama supporter.
lovelyliz
November 14th, 2009
7:22 am
Hypocricy in healthcare for children is easy when you are a faux pro-lifer who believes that life begins at conception and ends at birth. UYou can cliam to be pro0life with a clear conscience when you are merely pro-birth.
catlady
November 14th, 2009
7:51 am
I agree about your comments on Medicare. The elderly should not be sacred cows, discriminated for because of a number. However, I do not support CHIP. It is an overly generous program that does not encourage responsible behavior by parents. CHIP kids can go to the ER innumerable times (free), get every kind of therapy only dreamed of by most people (free), etc, etc, and PARENTS DON’T PAY A PREMIUM UNTIL THE CHILD IS SIX (and then a small amount based on unsubstantiated family income). I don’t support CHIP unless all children are covered for 6 years for free, regardless of parent income, and all children have unlimited access to doctors, dentists, therapists, the ER, etc, without cost. GET RID OF CHIP or cover ALL kids the same! Encourage parental responsibility!
catlady
November 14th, 2009
7:56 am
Re: the Speaker. Hope he gets well. Let’s go back and look at his voting record on funding mental health care, shall we? Might be instructive.
Go Jackets
November 14th, 2009
8:23 am
This is disgusting. “One day might be children.” Give me a break Cynthia.
Vinny
November 14th, 2009
8:47 am
Cynthia – Making a decision to kill the unborn babies is an elective procedure that should not be covered with taxpayer dollars. period.
Question
November 14th, 2009
8:51 am
Many above are on target — if you can’t afford to have/raise children, don’t! The government is not responsible for your poor life and financial choices!!
TaxPayer
November 14th, 2009
8:59 am
Let’s just eliminate insurance for anyone that cannot afford it.
jconservative
November 14th, 2009
9:02 am
TnGelding “Infant mortality is hurt by mothers that smoke, drink amd use drugs, something that is all to prevalent in the greatest country in history.”
Then is the answer to allow abortions on those babies? Your comment avoids the issue, maybe they do die because of the mothers drugs, etc.
Do you really want to say that is OK because you do not want to fund health care for all children? Your tax money is more important than thousands of babies lives? Look, you & I have debated too many issues & I know that is not your position. Please clarify.
————————-
Joan “If you can’t afford to raise a child… Don’t have it.”
Then is the answer to allow abortions on those babies? Joan do you suggest you want to allow those babies that are conceived & born to die because you do not want a “socialistic” health care system to be created out of your tax money?
Just asking for clarification of your position.
clyde
November 14th, 2009
9:03 am
Dear Bob @ 0721
Live birth mortality rate per 1000,for 2009,The U.S.ranks 46th.When mortality rates per 1000 are considered for all children under 5 years old we improve to no.33. j.conservative’s statement therefore stands unamended.
jconservative
November 14th, 2009
9:06 am
Vinny “Cynthia – Making a decision to kill the unborn babies is an elective procedure that should not be covered with taxpayer dollars. period.”
Do you also believe that the public decision to not use “taxpayer dollars” to care for born babies & allow them to die from lack of medical care is the correct decision?
Del
November 14th, 2009
9:18 am
Bob,Catlady, Vinny, Question…Absolutely well stated
Mike, There is another one who purports to be a doctor called Gov. Option who also spits out hate in his/her comments. I made a generalized statement the other day commenting on some who have to rant with anger and this Gov. Option thinking that I was referring to him/her shot back at me saying that he/she had saved lives from gunshot wounds on numerous occasions and would like to “throw me in the E/R with multiple hollow points in my chest” Of course for anyone in that described condition shot by multiple expanding JHP (hollow point) rounds the chances for survival would be about 99% against. Obviously this individual couldn’t have possessed experience treating gun shot trauma wounds without a working knowledge of ballistics associated with expanding ammunition. None the less this kind of comment was way over the top and I reported it to the AJC. I wonder if I’ll get a response.
Sam
November 14th, 2009
9:28 am
Life vs. Dollars? I’ll take life.
jconservative
November 14th, 2009
9:32 am
Bob at 7:21 am – “You are surely an Obama supporter.”
Actually I am a supporter of children who have been born and lack proper medical care.
Let’s say you are 100% correct & the US is the best country on the planet when it comes to infant mortality.
And let’s say that your statement that “Pre-natal is available to women that do not even pay for it” is 100% correct.
My position is that we also provide health care to every child in the country.
Your comment does not address that position.
For the record infant mortality in the US is as follows:
2000…6.89%, 2001…6.84%, 2002…6.95%, 2003…6.84%, 2004…6.78%,
2005…6.86%, 2006…6.71%(preliminary).
As for being an Obama supporter – wrong.
Joan
November 14th, 2009
10:28 am
About clarification: I am a conservative, believing in individual rights and responsibilities. I believe that if you want to have something, you pay for it, including a child. If you want not to have the child, then you pay for an abortion. Yes, I think that abortions done in the first trimester should be the inidividual’s right and responsibility. That doesn’t mean the government should pay for it, and it doesn’t mean I think abortion is ok anytime, or as a form of birth control. I think there is a place for reasonableness in all of this discussion. I am not “for abortions”, nor am I for unfettered “free choice” except under limited circumstances like, not as birth control, and not late term. There are always exceptions to any rule.
Del
November 14th, 2009
10:39 am
Joan,
I would certainly agree with your 10:28am post. Abortion in a case where the mother’s health is at risk. Rape, incest two gray areas, however, I certainly wouldn’t be one to pass judgment. No tax payer dollars for elective abortions other than the above.
Joe
November 14th, 2009
10:45 am
“Pre Babies”? When do they become “Babies”? Is abortion ok at 8 1/2 months? How about 7 months…6 months? When Cynthia? You need a reality check. Why don’t you go observe a late term abortion and then report on how the “pre baby” was not a real child. Lady, you need help!
Peaches
November 14th, 2009
10:46 am
Nothing pisses off Cynthia Tucker like protecting the unborn.
Joe
November 14th, 2009
10:59 am
With apologies to Jeff..If you like killing babies and protecting murderers…you might be a liberal.
Common Sense
November 14th, 2009
11:54 am
Ms. Tucker:
I CHALLENGE YOU (or anyone else) to explain any difference to me between a child in the womb and one outside of the womb except in one area ……… the method of oxygen intake (lungs vs. umbilical cord) …… which has nothing to do with the definition of what is “human life”.
If you try to say “viability” that doesn’t get it either. That child is NOT viable “outside” the womb UNLESS SOMEONE TAKES CARE OF IT. If you just let it lay there for a couple of days it will die.
The child in not viable “in” the womb UNLESS THE MOTHER TAKES CARE OF IT.
Your turn ……………..
Jim
November 14th, 2009
12:12 pm
Why do you have children if you cannot afford them? There was a time when people had 8,10, or 12 like my grandparents. They raised them without government help. Maybe, this situation is more related to dysfunctional and immoral people than to the confusion over whose responsible for their care. I wonder how many children you are taking care of?
Franky
November 14th, 2009
12:32 pm
Mr. Richardson, just switch and become a Democrat and all your thoughts of suicide will go away.
Linda
November 14th, 2009
2:06 pm
“Free” abortion paid by taxpayers encourages bad behavior.
If you can’t afford a car, new furniture, 20 pairs of shoes, children, etc., wait until you can.
If you make a mistake, take responsibility for it. I take responsibility for mine.
If you can’t afford or don’t want children, try abstinence, birth control &/or not watching Oprah.
Constructive Feedback
November 14th, 2009
2:45 pm
MARK THIS AS A FIRST!!!! CYNTHIA TUCKER TACITLY ATTACKS A DEMOCRAT RATHER THAN A REPUBLICAN!!!! (Well they are conservative Democrats but I still credit her none the less).
Ms Tucker – yours is an intellectually dishonest argument.
In your statist mind you attempt to shift the burden for the care and feeding of these children who survived the abortionist’s vacuum from their PARENTS over to society at large. It appears that you are comfortable making us all wards of the state.
The question of if a woman should forcibly detach a child that is gestating inside of her womb from its nutrition source via an outpatient surgery that has been deemed legal VERSUS the notion that the government should provide all of the health care that this child might need after it is born are two totally distinct arguments. The responsibility resides with the PARENTS and the FAMILY to insure that they have the appropriate conditions within which this child is born and that the medical and financial resources are available to do so.
It would be interesting if you were to shift your argument from the perspective of “How could the CENTRAL GOVERNMENT be so callus as to allow this to happen” over to “How can a set of adults with working reproductive organs and an extended family seeking to recreate the next generation in an optimum fashion allow their offspring to be born in an environment where some minimum threshold of his needs can be met”?
It is clear with you the goal is to get us ALL upon the government dole.
ken
November 14th, 2009
3:31 pm
Be a witness to an abortion Cynthia and give us a report!!!!!!!!! Give us the details !!!!!!!!
Common Sense
November 14th, 2009
3:36 pm
To Ken:
Amen …………… Like the abortion clinic supervisor who did just that recently and is now pro-life.