ÿortlanb OObseruer
May 4. 2011
Page 9
________________ O pinion
Children’s Health on the Chopping Block
Stand up, speak
up and say no!
by
M arian W right E delman
Like many parents, Anne-
Marie Skinner knows “acci
dents happen.” Her active, ath
letic teenagers Constance and
Lucas are both involved in a
number of extracurricular ac
tivities, and both have unfortu
nately suffered sports-related inju
ries that required serious medical
care.
One of the worst accidents hap
pen ed w hen a b a sk etb a ll hit
Constance in the face, requiring an
emergency room visit, an MRI, and
follow-up care from multiple doc
tors, including a pediatric eye care
specialist.
Thankfully, both Constance and
Lucas have been able to get the care
they need because they are enrolled
in Healthy Families, California’s
version of the State C hildren’s
Health Insurance Program (CHIP)—
low-cost health insurance for chil
dren, teenagers, and pregnant
women.
H ealth y
F a m ilies m akes
Constance and Lucas’s care afford
able for their family.
Alicia Alferez faces a different
challenge— keep
ing up w ith her
c h ild ’s ch ro n ic
health condition.
Her oldest son, 14-
year-old Alexei, has
severe asthma.
L ike
A nne-
Marie, Alicia is a California resident
who relies on Healthy Families cov
erage for her three children. With
his Healthy Fam ilies coverage,
Alexei is able to access preventive
care including a machine to admin
ister medication to help him breathe
and multiple prescription drugs to
prevent and treat his asthma. Sev
eral times a year, Alexei still ends up
in the emergency room. Last year
Alexei suffered an asthma attack
and fell to the ground while running
in gym class, and was rushed to the
hospital in an ambulance.
Healthy Families has made it pos
sible for Alicia to manage Alexei’s
prescription drugs, doctor visits,
and emergency room visits and
Making medical care a human right
b y K a y T illow
M ore than a
year after Presi
d en t
B arack
O bam a signed
the Patient Pro
tection and Af
fordable Care Act
in to law , our
n atio n 's health
care delivery and coverage remain
the disgrace of the industrialized
world.
There are more than 50 million
uninsured Americans. Even if the
health care overhaul works as
planned, 23 million Americans will
still lack health insurance in 2019.
The new norm is underinsurance.
About 40 percent of us go without
needed care because we can't afford
it. The health care law won’t change
that, even once it's com pletely
phased in. Our plague of medical
bankruptcies will continue too.
For unions, bargaining for health
care is getting tougher as employ
ers demand cuts and shift more costs
to workers. Negotiations over bet
ter health coverage will become al
most impossible when the excise tax
on health benefits begins in 2018.
Many who saw the reform bill as
"the best we could get" are dis
appointed that support for it
hasn't grown. The truth is that
most people agree on the reform
law.
They love the parts that block
insurance companies from de
nying coverage and care. They
hate the parts that give away our
tax dollars to insurance compa
nies. They hate the mandate that
will force everyone to buy insur
ance from the very companies whose
profit motive is the source of most of
our health care system's problems.
They hate the escalating costs of
insurance and care.
Only a single payer system can
bring us the parts we love and do
away with the parts we hate. It would
essentially expand Medicare cover
age to all Americans, providing 100
percent guaranteed coverage re
gardless of employment status or
pre-existing conditions. That may
sound expensive, but it's not.
The "potential savings on pa
perwork, more than $400billion per
year, are enough to provide com
prehensive coverage to everyone
without paying any more than we
already do," according to Physi
cians for a National Health Program.
h elp ed A n n e-M arie th rough
Constance’s eye injury. But in re
cent years, changes in the state
budget for Healthy Families and
California’s Medicaid program,
M edi-Cal— including significant
prem ium and co -p ay m en t in
creases— have been making it harder
for families to get critical health care
services for their children.
ping block” twice over, once be
cause of state budget cuts and a
second time because of federal bud
get cuts. They all risk losing the
affordable, comprehensive health
coverage their children need to grow
up healthy and strong.
The U.S. House of Representa
tives approved an unfair and short
sighted budget that will assault
The U.S. House o f Representatives
approved an unfair and shortsighted
budget that will assault vulnerable
children and low income families.
Another round of cost-sharing
increases in the state’s 2011-2012
budget will cause real and lasting
hardship for families like the Skin
ners and the Alferezes including the
difficult decisions they will face if
the co-payment for an emergency
room visit increases to $50 per visit.
These two families are among the
millions around the country whose
health coverage is “on the chop
Every pro-patient measure in the
law brings an ugly backlash from
insurance companies, because they
want to remain in the driver’s seat.
For example, the act says children
who have been sick can’t be denied
coverage. Insurers have responded
by refusing to sell child-only poli
cies. The act says there must be
minimal standards of coverage. Yet
hundreds of companies have ob
tained waivers after threatening to
drop coverage altogether.
The legislation is designed to
expand Medicaid as the main way
for states to cover more people. It
prohibits states from dum ping
people currently covered. Yet with
state budgets in crisis, Medicaid is
under the knife. Arizona plans on
dumping 250,000. Many states pro
pose increasing patient co-pays,
thus damaging the ability of pa
tients to find doctors and fatally
undermining rural hospitals.
Some assert that healthcare re
form just isn’t working. Yet. Give it
10 years, and all will be fixed.
But our new health law is an
chored on the private insurance in
dustry — and that's its fatal flaw.
The insurers inflict enormous and
unnecessary administrative costs
on our system. This amounts to
hundreds of billions of dollars ev
vulnerable children and low income
families. It would make deep cuts in
Medicaid, shift more costs to states,
and eliminate core protections for
the 30 million children served by the
program. In 2013 it would de-fund
the successful and cost effective
Children’s Health Insurance Pro
gram (CHIP).
All this at a time when 50 million
Americans, including more than
ery year and condemns us to spend
about double, per capita, what other
nations spend on health care.
Health care advocates must move
beyond the health care reform law.
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has
reintroduced H.R. 676, the Expanded
and Improved Medicare for All Act,
which would bring all medically
necessary care to everyone while
assuring choice of physician. The
bill is based on sound single-payer
policy and progressive public fund
ing.
If every other industrialized na
eight million children, are uninsured.
The House budget would repeal
health reform that would reach an
additional 32 million people and 95
percent of all children over the next
few years.
Children of color, who make up
more than half of the children served
by Medicaid, would fare worst and
be placed at risk of preventable suf
fering, chronically poor health, and
even death. And for what purpose?
To pay for more tax cuts to the
wealthiest individuals and corpora
tions in America.
As President Obama said about
the House budget, “There’s noth
ing serious about a plan that claims
to reduce the deficit by spending a
trillion dollars on taxcuts for million
aires and billionaires. And I don't
think there’s anything courageous
about asking for sacrifice from those
who can least afford it and don’t
have any clout on Capitol Hill. That's
not a vision of the America I know.”
If this is not the America you
want, stand up and speak up and
say no!
Marian Wright Edelman is Presi
dent ofthe Children's Defense Fund.
tion can make health care a human
right, we can do it too. Our challenge
is to pass effective legislation de
spite the powerful private health
insurance companies and other cor
porations whose influence often
trumps democracy.
First, we must have a powerful
movement. We can’t build it around
a shriveled dream. Only single payer,
with its bolder promise of social
justice, can inspire that movement.
Kay Tillow is the coordinator o f
the A ll Unions Committee fo r Single
Payer Health Care/
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