Speak Now For Kids!
Posted May 28th, 2009 by Aimee OssmanJust like parents all across the country, you probably have stories to tell about your children’s health care experiences. No one needs to hear these stories more than the members of Congress who are making decisions right now about the future of health care in America.
I am director of Medicaid and state policy analysis for the National Association of Children’s Hospitals (N.A.C.H.) and have worked on children’s health policy issues most of my career. I am also a mom to two energetic young boys — Owen, 7 and Carter, 3. I know not only from my professional work, but also because I am a mom, how important health care is for children. Children who do not have access to health care are more likely to miss school which can negatively affect educational achievement. Many adult chronic conditions originate in childhood. A child’s ability to access preventive and needed health care services when they are young can impact their long term health and their quality of life well into adulthood. Without access to health care coverage, children often delay needed medical care and miss well-child visits.
Many of my friends and family not familiar with the intricacies of health policy ask me why including children in the health care debate means so much to me since I have private health insurance coverage for my kids. It is important to me because I believe that Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program are an important safety net for many families and would be there for my family if we needed them. It is important to me to support the physician workforce for children so that all children can have access to the specialty care they need when they need it. It is also important to me to improve the quality information available so that when children need health care their parents have the information required to make educated decisions. Children have a lot to gain in health reform, but they also have the most to lose if health reform does not address their needs.
That is why I believe making sure that children have a voice in health reform is the right action to take. Why is it important to you that children’s needs be included? Your family’s story might be about how hard it is to get the right health care coverage, or to find the right specialists and get a timely appointment, or to pay for health insurance premiums, co-pays and uncovered services. Or maybe you’ve had a sick child and were able to access the care you needed thanks to the health coverage you do have and want to make sure that other parents and families have the same experience. Please share your family’s health care story at www.SpeakNowforKids.org. The Speak Now for Kids campaign is non-partisan and is uniquely focused on making sure our elected officials don’t forget about kids as they are reforming our health care system.
8 Comments
Thank you for bringing the health needs of children into the debate on health reform. While CHIP and Medicaid are successful programs, many uninsured children are not eligible and others are eligible but not enrolled due to bureaucratic barriers. It is very important for Congress to hear the voices of children as it debates health reform.
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May 30, 2009 at 7:28 pm by AdaireYou can thank whomever you want that you have health insurance, but there are plenty of parents and single parents like me who have never had the luxury of having a job that offered insurance. I would love to be able to afford health insurance for my children, but I can’t. Even while married, we couldn’t afford it and I was SO grateful that in California there were the possibilities of Medi-Cal (which covers most areas including dental) and Healthy Families which operates on a low cost Co-Pay. I would LOVE to have everyone, not just my own family, enjoy the health care they DESERVE, by having Universal Health care. We have one of the worst health care systems, the highest infant mortality rates, and preventative deaths for an industrialized nation, and yet we pay the most money! Our present system of privatization and “Im only looking out for #1″ mentality is not working.
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May 29, 2009 at 6:28 pm by SandraI agree with Tracy. I have friends with children with special needs. Thank god for private insurance & state of the art medical care. Having universal health care would devastate competition & support for private doctors and other health professionals.
I am just a physical therapists. We own a clinic that refuses to see HMO’s & Medicaid because the quality of care would plummet. We can’t afford it. Having universal health care would just make it worse!!! We give free care and provide community services in other ways. But we get to choose!!!
BTW, doctors don’t make that much after insurance, paying back school loans, etc.
Please, no more regulations from the government!!!!!!
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May 28, 2009 at 9:44 pm by KristenBravo, Aimee!
As a primary care physician I completely agree with you about the need for universal health coverage in this country, particularly during childhood; the most important years for disease prevention and health promotion.
To Tracy Hafen – for every neighbor’s brother in Canada who’s waiting I give you a handful of Americans with Asthma, Diabetes, and Coronoary Artery Disease who don’t get treated. Medicaid does not cover anyone, not by a long shot. Medicare and the VA both spend WAY less money on administration and overhead than commercial insurance companies, with better outcomes.
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May 28, 2009 at 9:25 pm by Tracy HafenWe already have universal health coverage in this country, and it is called medicaid. If you think it is not good enough, then be prepared, because government-run universal health care will mean worse service than medicaid to ALL individuals including your children and mine. The government cannot run the health care in this country. Medicare will be bankrupt within a few years. Look at the disasters of Canada and Britain…with populations far less than our own. My neighbor’s brother just died in Canada while on a wait list for a stent, and her sister has been on a wait list for a hip replacement for 2.5 years…still no word. Meanwhile, Sweden is moving toward privatizing health care, because the government fails at it.
And yes, “WE”, meaning PARENTS and not the government, need to take care of our children fully. Why anyone thinks that government is the answer is beyond me. Every single example we have of government-run care is a flashing neon sign warning “DISASTER.” Look at the facts and do some research.
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Clare A. Reply:
June 5th, 2009 at 1:38 am
@Tracy Hafen, if we had publicly-funded or single payer health care in this country, we wouldn’t have ~50% of of bankruptcies related to medical expenses. (See Harvard study at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w5.63/DC1 )
Americans already pay something like 18.5% of government revenue on health, but our per-person costs are much higher than any other first world nation, so that 18.5% of our TOTAL GOVERNMENT REVENUE only covers something like 44.5% of total health costs. Even though our system is more expensive, we get poorer outcomes than countries with publicly-funded / single-payer health systems.
When was the last time you went to the hospital? Did you ask for an itemized breakdown of the costs? Didn’t you see some fishy numbers? You do the research!
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Tracy Hafen Reply:
June 7th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
@Clare A., In fact, I have been to a hospital lately. We have seven children, one of whom is severely disabled with cerebral palsy. She is wheelchair-bound, gets all of her nourishment through a G-J tube, and averages 1-2 major surgeries per year. And, yes, I look at our medical bills. Of course the costs are outrageous, and I think we need to get costs down. But I feel the way to do it is through the private sector and competition…maybe utilizing some government prodding to do it. And I don’t mind the idea of some subsidies to allow families to choose their coverage. But if we go universal, no one will care about our business, because we will no longer be clients. Customer service, ie. patient service, will plummet. That is my fear. I also fear a flooding of the system that I need to use for true emergencies on a very regular basis. Selfish, I know.
And one point no one seems to be bringing up is the ever-expanding control the government has over our lives. Once you have universal health care,you better believe that the government can tell us what we have to eat, how much we need to exercise, what we need to weigh, etc. It is a nightmare. And if they DON’T do that, it is then irresponsible, because I don’t want to pay for someone else’s poor lifestyle choices. It creates a necessary control over people’s personal lives. I am philosophically opposed to government control over our lives. Those who founded this country and those who came for over a century following came to get away from government control. What are we doing??? As for our health care outcomes versus other countries with universal health care, read the information at http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596. I think it makes a strong case for keeping the system private and working within that system to control costs.
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There are so many compelling reasons to me why we should support children’s full health care coverage. First, it’s the right thing to do for our kids– we need to take care of our children fully, with no reservations. Full health care coverage is essential to proper care of our kids.
Prevention is another compelling reason. We save so much money and stress down the line by investing just a little bit now. At the individual, community, state and national levels, this makes sense.
We are lucky. Our family is covered through my husband’s insurance– and we are fairly healthy. And keeping our fingers crossed.
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