Health care for pregnant women & children under six?

Supposn

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2009
Messages
102
Children and pregnant women should be among our nation’s first priority. The U.S. Congress will pass a health bill this or next year. Will that bill will be an improvement of our nation’s health and economy that will justify the increased spending (and debt)? [An unsatisfactory bill will be a net detriment to our nation. If the sense of the U.S. Congress is we can not now afford to make health care affordable for all of our citizens, can we at least protect pregnant women and the youngest of our children?

We should not disregard Medicare and Medicaid when discussing existing or proposed federal health plan. Excerpts from the thread entitled “Medicare; a public health plan with private options”, begun on 5Sep09:
“I am not satisfied with the manner of Medicare funding but the over whelming majority of Medicare’s patients and their children are pleased with Medicare’s quality of health service”. Refer to this thread for a description of Medicare and Medicaid.

The administration and regulation of Children’s Health Insurance Plans for States, (CHIPS) with two significant exceptions is very similar to that of Medicaid. CHIPS generally covers only pregnant women and children; CHIPS income “caps” are much greater than those of Medicaid. The cap was set so high because prior to CHIPS enactment, such a great portion of families with even above median income levels could not afford commercial health insurance.

Despite CHIPS much higher income cap, only 1.5% 0f the elderly have no medical insurance while that statistic is over 11% for our nation’s children. I attribute much of that statistical disparity to all CHIPS enrollees being regulated and administrated as we do for Medicaid beneficiaries. Unlike Medicare, in most (if not all states), Medicaid patients have generally qualified and are treated as public assistance recipients.
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I advocate expanding Medicare coverage to all pregnant women and children without regard for family income. We ca presume that higher income families paid their full share of taxes. Why should we pay the expense of income verification? Permit those who are able and willing to pay the Medicare Part-B fees to do so and have complete choice of medical providers.

Since Medicare does not cover dental and eye glasses, we can retain the same income caps for those CHIP services and lower the income caps for all other services. An alternative method would be to simply lower the caps to qualify for all of CHIPS.

If. the USA can not afford all pregnant women and children to be entitled to Medicare, can we limit the children to those under 13 years of age? If we can not afford that, can we at very least cover all pregnant women and children under six years of age?

Refer to the thread entitled “Medicare; a public health plan with private options”, begun on 5Sep09. Respectfully, Supposn
 
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