Children's Health Insurance

I’m not surprised by this: Bush Administration Acts to Limit Healthcare Coverage Plan for Poor Children. A quote from the article about the state CHIP program:

The program, pushed and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1997, has been a clear success. Over the course of last year, it provided health coverage to 6.6 million low-income children at a cost to the federal government of $5 billion.

That comes out to $757 dollars a year per child. Try getting private coverage for that.

OK, here’s an example. A single mom with two kids makes, oh, $20,000 a year. That’s ten dollars an hour, almost twice minimum wage, but just a bit above the poverty level, and quite below the US median family income. She can a) buy family insurance coverage through her job for about a thousand dollars a month, which will cover partial prescriptions, but not dentistry or glasses (which leaves her $8,000 a year before taxes to live on), b) buy major medical coverage with a large deductible for about $300 a month, but still pay over a hundred a month for prescriptions, and so do without dentistry or glasses, or c) sign up for the CHIP program in her state, which covers all medical expenses, prescriptions, dentistry, and glasses for her kids. Mom will do without, as always.

Our president thinks you don’t need insurance, because you can always go to the emergency room. Try doing that with a toothache. He needs to walk in someone else’s moccasins for a while.